#well. first draft. er. second actually

[sichore]

this brainrot took hold in record time

[daycourtofficial]

Are we getting a Caramel Cookie Pumpkin Spice latte???? 👀👀👀👀

I am actually so glad you asked for this because I had started something in my drafts for this!!

Order your own coffee for gingerfucker week from the menu here

Caramel and pumpkin spice latte with a cookie = gingerfucker + Eris + fluff with extra banter

Eris’s body relaxed into the soft mattress, the sheets seemingly molding a perfect dip for him. Sleep found Eris much easier these days, the familiar comfort of his mate’s body made his body relax so easily it almost terrified him.

Was this how everyone else slept? In his younger years, it seemed he spent hours each night staring at his ceiling, hoping for its collapse to grant him some rest. Sleeping had always felt too vulnerable for him, his body never quite stilling long enough.

Hia eyes closed so easily, an arm draped around his waist. His breathing slowed.

“Er?” A soft shaking woke him up, his eyes not opening but his eyebrows moving up. His name was met with something between a groan and an acknowledgement, something he knew she wouldn’t be bothered by. With the grogginess of his sleep laddened mind, he hoped the question wouldn’t require too much thinking to stir him from this half-sleep existence.

“You know I wouldn’t actually get married again, right?”

His mind flashed to an earlier conversation, one about how his mate’s next husband will surely be both well endowed and capable of making the chocolate cake she loves so dearly from her home in the Night Court. It was a silly statement, one he balked at as he told her no matter how well-endowed he may be, she’d always think of him when with her next husband.

“If this is a ploy to get me to allow you to marry Lucien….”

“No.” Her voice left a pause, one Eris tried desperately to stay awake to hear the rest of. “But you’re it for me. I don’t care how blessed any male has been, he’s not you.”

“Thank you, my dear. It was eating me to alive to consider you would forego widow status for a large cock.”

“I’m serious, Er.”

“As am I. If you remarry, I’d never allow him to be buried in our plot.”

This conversation was a bit ridiculous for the hour,

“We have a burial plot?”

“Of course. You’ll lay next to me for eternity and there is no room for a second husband.”

“Can we hold hands?”

Eris reached back, his hand searching to entangle in hers, “not now! I mean when we’re dead.”

“We can do whatever you wish. You may have to decide soon. I may die from lack of sleep.”

The room was silent, his mate’s breath in his ear steadying him. Despite her objections, she held a tight grip on his hand.

“If I died first, I would kill you if you married someone else.”

“Of course, mhm.”

“There’d be no room in the house for them. The closet’s full and there would be nowhere for them to stay.”

The house was large enough for several families to occupy, a fact Eris kept to himself. The sounds from Eris were slurred with sleep, but the arms around him tightened.

“Er?”

“Mhmmm?”

“I love you.” She left a soft kiss to his back before burying her dace between his shoulder blades.

“I love you too, my first and only wife.”

[nanowrimo]

Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: How to Write a Clean(ish) Fast Draft

NaNoWriMo can seem like a daunting task sometimes, for NaNo newbies and veterans alike. Fortunately, our NaNo Coaches are here to help guide you through November! Today, author Jesse Q. Sutanto is here to share her advice on how to set yourself up for noveling success:

Dear Nano-ers,

My first book took me three years to cobble together. During that time, I joined Absolute Write—a free writers forum which I completely love and recommend to all aspiring writers—and I made a friend who convinced me to try doing NaNoWriMo. I was completely unconvinced, but I am a people-pleaser and I can never say no, so I agreed to try it for my second novel.

My second novel took me less than a month to write. It was a complete mess, but it was also a revelation. Often, I felt myself falling into that writing Holy Grail—the hole which consumes you, makes you forget the rest of the world, and absorbs you completely in the world you are creating on paper. I loved the process deeply, and never looked back since. All of my subsequent books have since been written in a matter of months. 

And you know what? They were all a horrific mess. I did not learn how to do a clean and fast draft until my NINTH book, and I don’t think I would’ve ever learnt without the help of NaNoWriMo. So here are my tips on how to best tackle a sprint-a-thon like NaNo. 

1. Try to come up with a loose outline.

When I first started writing, I was a pure pantser. I had no idea what was going to happen before I sat down to write. This is a completely legit way of writing, but I have since learned that it is massively helpful to have an idea, even a vague one, of what you are trying to say with your book. What was really helpful for me was to sit down for just five minutes before writing each scene and try to envision what I wanted the scene to achieve. Once I had that in mind, the scene became much easier to write. 

2. Break down your writing time.

Ever heard of the Pomodoro technique? In order to hit 50,000 words a month, you need to write around 1,600 words a day. That is a heck of a lot of words to write! Break it down. Set 10 or 15-minute timers and use that to your advantage. Trust me, if you told me to sit down and write 1,600 words, I would be like, “Omg that’s too much!” But if you told me to just write for 15 minutes, that feels a lot more doable. 

3. Give yourself permission to write trash.

Before each writing session, I actually say out loud: “I am going to write trash.” And this gives me permission to write whatever comes to my mind without judgment. You can always edit later, but for now, focus on letting the words out on paper. 

4. Lean on others for support.

I made the mistake of thinking that writing is a lonely vocation. In fact, it is one of the most social things I could do. Social media, while a double-edged sword, has done so much for the writing community. I have found all of my close writer friends through social media, and I chat with them every day and consider them my close, lifelong friends. Don’t be afraid to reach out and make connections within the community. You are not alone. 

Jesse Q. Sutanto is the award-winning, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, Well, That Was Unexpected, The Obsession, and Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit. The film rights to her women’s fiction, Dial A for Aunties, was bought by Netflix in a competitive bidding war, and the TV rights to Vera Wong was bought by Warner Bros, with Oprah and Mindy Kaling attached to produce. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Oxford University, though she hasn’t found a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Libations

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 Characters: Dame Aylin/Isobel Thorm Length: ~4200 words Rating: M, sexual content and a bit of canon-typical violence, with very temporary character death. Summary:

Five and twenty words exactly and Aylin feels like she will expire on the spot, divine heritage and immortality be damned. By the time she has composed herself and her mind into something resembling coherence, excused herself from the meeting with her lieutenants, and started counting out the words of If you wish it, I shall leave my armour on, and— Aylin realises with a curse that her window for composing a reply has long gone.

Isobel, Aylin, the Sending spell, and the twists and turns of a century-long romance reflected in 25-word installments.

But for the most part our girls are simply playful and horny.

Written for day 7 of Aylin/Isobel Week 2025, for the prompts: The road to Baldur's Gate - and beyond | Courtship, romance, letters, bloodline.

I wanted to end the week on something (mostly) happy. A huge thanks to everyone who's taken part in this - I have so much to catch up on, be it reading, commenting, or replying, and it is a true delight. I hope you all enjoyed my own contributions, and I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Also on AO3.

—

Libations

The summer Isobel completes her training is one of the longest and driest in Reithwin's recollection. When it comes to be her turn for a field excursion and initiation mission with the other acolytes, Isobel begs and pleads and argues with her father for days. There is no need for the Lady of Moonrise to go, he claims; no point to Isobel putting herself at risk, or dragging herself through the dusty, sweltering inconveniences of a field campaign. But Isobel will not be deterred, and the cold war of the two stubborn Thorms in Moonrise Towers stretches on for a full blistering tenday.

Ultimately and begrudgingly, likely knowing his daughter is bound to simply leave of her own accord otherwise, Ketheric relents - but not without stipulations and conditions. For one, Isobel is to report back regularly using the Sending spell to keep him personally appraised of events and of her well-being. Second, Isobel is to use the freshly-procured and altogether excessive amount of scrolls of the selfsame spell, in order to make sure she is never straining her own magical resources.

And so Isobel sets out, saves a village, combats bandits, prevents a drought, heals more people than she ever thought herself capable of, and neglects to use a single one of the spell scrolls.

-

The first message is utter torment. Isobel toils over it, scraps so many bits of drafting paper her room starts looking decidedly snowed-in, and as white as her actually ice-locked balcony. At least Squire seems to be having fun batting the crumpled-up balls around the floor.

There is the form of address, to start with.

Dame Aylin seems, to Isobel's eye, proud and honoured by her role and many, many titles, very delightfully certain of her own resplendence, but also not so keen on being singled out for formalities and praise that erred on the side of worshipful. That kind of reverent prayer and supplication, she claimed as she waved it off, was meant for her great divine Mother.

She is striking and intimidating, to be sure - but once one tries it, she is the very opposite of unapproachable. Her smiles are wide, enthusiastic, freely given, and she is just as generous with hands clapped on shoulders or rousing proclamations. It is so easy, standing next to her, to believe yourself capable of grand deeds. A true beacon of hope and the quintessential paladin - Isobel could hardly hide her starry-eyed appreciation after mere moments in her orbit.

And yet whenever the glorious Dame Aylin turns that gleaming silver gaze towards her, when she truly looks at Isobel, all of this is so unmistakably tinged with something else. Something they are both aware of; something that looms, and seems both so unlikely and strange and so inevitable and so right. One of them need only take the first momentous step.

So, Isobel agonises, is this it? Is this the step? It seemed like such a clever idea when it occurred to her, when she knocked over her case of scrolls one unassuming morning, left over from all those years ago. A simple Sending spell: direct, private, with an invitation for the two of them to meet somewhere just as private. Promising a response within seconds, if the recipient is willing. And if not, well… Isobel could worry about that when the time came to face her goddess' literal daughter in the inevitable duty-related context again.

Honoured Emissary, Sword of the Silverlight, Champion of the Moonmaiden, Blessed Moondaughter - Isobel could use twenty-five words and more just getting through the preamble. Nonsense. Missing the point entirely, at that.

So she simply settles for Dame Aylin, not yet feeling quite so bold as to leave the title out, notes down her auspicious beginning on her current and latest little vellum scrap, and stops.

Now: counting out the remaining twenty-three perfect and exact words she wishes to send, to be heard.

Isobel groans and lets her head thunk against the solid wood of her desk.

-

It started with that fateful meeting in the audience hall of Moonrise, threading the first of its tiny roots through them both. But it flourished with the surprising summons that made Aylin's heart beat like a lively drum, and the brief private audience that turned into a long night of confessions - and rather rapidly growing closeness to stave off the cold - in the frost-garlanded gardens beneath Moonrise.

In the warm months since, it has only bloomed.

Aylin finds herself on the receiving end of many a message from Reithwin's wisest and brightest and most mettlesome cleric, after that audacious first one. The invitations take many forms, from mock-formal proclamations to open suggestions for trysts, and Aylin adores and eagerly answers every single one.

Respected Emissary, starts the latest message, arriving just as Aylin is done cleaning and putting away the equipment she had borrowed for her morning training. The smile audible in Isobel's voice implies this one will be a cheeky mix of her habitual styles. You are hereby invited to attend today's solstice festivities at Moonrise Towers. Following supper, your presence is requested on the topmost west-facing balcony.

The entire whirlwind of the past few months has been altogether exhilarating and so delightfully new. Aylin finds herself wishing to leap into the air to twirl and loop at least some her immense exuberance away; to chase and herd clouds until they spell Isobel's name out in the otherwise clear sky.

Instead, she takes a few deep breaths to calm herself, to slow the blood still rushing through her veins after her drills and stretches and let her ruffled feathers settle back down, then replies: I shall be flying past momentarily, my darling. If my presence is welcome and desired this early, leave your window open.

The window, it turns out, is not merely left open as a signal of welcome. Isobel, leaning out of it, all but grabs Aylin right out of the air to pull her in for a kiss. And then another. And another, until Aylin laughs against her mouth and begs for a reprieve long enough to clamber into the room.

Selûnites, diverse and scattered as they are, have modes of dress and raiments just as varied. Aylin respects them all deeply, and regularly feels her heart both lightened and gladdened when encountering familiar insignia, sometimes with an interesting twist on the moon-and-stars-inspired designs, in some remote corner of the world.

Isobel is a highly skilled, well-qualified cleric, and she has doubtlessly earned her vestments well. She wears them with great pride, and on many occasions - never letting those around her forget she is a servant of Selûne just as much as she is the Lady of Moonrise, and Reithwin, and all the lands around it.

Aylin, of course, likes her best wearing nothing at all. But when needs must, when the time is too short, when the day is full of obligations for them both, she makes do. She ducks her head underneath layers and layers of robes with great delight, presses a trail of kisses up one calf, then all along the inside of a thigh, and prays her Mother doesn't mind Her clerical vestments being worn for a sweeter ritual than the one they shall take part in later.

-

Another change of seasons comes, then another, but the sweetness of their time together changes not at all - and neither does the enticing tension of their brief times apart.

Isobel grows well-practised in casting the Sending spell, and makes sure to have the bit of clipped copper wire it requires close at hand. Still, she keeps her stock of scrolls replenished, too. They are pricey - but Isobel allows herself this one indulgence, this one luxury.

She supposes she will eventually stop blushing furiously during her morning prayers, when it comes to the preparation of her chosen rituals and spells for the day. Isobel hopes the Goddess is amused, if anything; Her blessings She gives freely and easily enough.

But no amount of flushed distraction or momentary embarrassment can deter Isobel. Not when her beloved is so quick with the replies, so eager to rise to any challenge; not when a cleverly-worded message so often leads to her presence at Isobel's side and sparks such delectable inspiration in her.

Tonight, however, is merely frustrating. An inconvenience at most, in the grand scheme of things, but Aylin being called away on a brief but urgent matter when they'd had an indulgent romantic evening arranged soured both their moods considerably.

Aylin promised to return as soon as she was able that very night, swore the two of them would salvage whatever bit of their plans they could; swore, again, to make up for this ill-timed absence a dozen times over.

So Isobel waits, relieved as the humidity of the day slowly clears, watches the moon steadily traverse the clear summer sky, and indulges in thoughts since all else is out of reach. She hums and contemplates the shapes of a gorgeous, strong neck trailing down to a beautifully corded shoulder, with that one eye-catching line of gold woven across it.

She discards their plans one by one; the dinner, the stroll, tasting the new seasonal ales at the inn, the bath— well, perhaps not the bath.

Isobel goes out onto her balcony, pacing in the blessedly fresh breeze that still fails to drive the nigh-feverish flush from her skin, and sends her message.

I am in no mood for romantic candlelight. I wish to see this firestorm kindled within me illuminate the divinely chiselled marble of your face.

Aylin's reply is as a murmur against her ear, as light as the caress of the midsummer wind on its sensitive tip.

Our Lady of Silver, in all her foresight, has fashioned for my beloved a throne. Soon you shall take your rightful place upon it.

Not an hour later, when the sound of wings finally comes from just out of view, Isobel feels like she could take flight herself.

-

The winter campaign against an unpleasant alliance of Sharrans and Cyricists is long and arduous, and takes Aylin further north than Neverwinter. The cold is biting and the ground hard, particularly after she has allowed herself to get used to the luxury of a high-born lady's warm bed. But worst of all is the gaping wound that her absence feels like. For all the joy Aylin draws from the loyal comrades she has been fighting with, they are simply not Isobel Thorm. Her darling, unmatched in every aspect.

Another day dawns, another map is unfurled upon the camp-table, another scouting party reports their findings. The dark forces seem to be dwindling, at long last, and Aylin lets burgeoning hope wash over her.

My fierce, fearless paladin, Isobel's sweet voice bursts out of nowhere, rich with yearning and just a touch breathy, pouring like honey over Aylin's mind. I often wonder how it would taste, to have a sip of you fresh from battle, eyes still ablaze, raging. Consider.

Five and twenty words exactly and Aylin feels like she will expire on the spot, divine heritage and immortality be damned.

By the time she has composed herself and her mind into something resembling coherence, excused herself from the meeting with her lieutenants, and started counting out the words of If you wish it, I shall leave my armour on, and— Aylin realises with a curse that her window for composing a reply has long gone.

-

She misses her sorely, today. Her Aylin, her angel, off on an important quest that turned into a months-long endeavour. And it is not - well, it is not just the enthralling physical proximity, or the delicious skills of mouth or fingers, nor simply her wonderful warmth during the cold winter months. It is the large, sword-calloused hand always ready to envelop Isobel's, the blindingly bright smile, the eyes softened and gentle and wide in their endless attentiveness, the way she makes even the simplest everyday statements sound like poetry.

The world feels just a little bit emptier, because she is not here. So Isobel does the one thing she can, and weaves a bit of magic to let her know.

My precious angel, from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were meant to be mine, and I yours. And then she pauses - Isobel cannot, in that tiny span of time she has to finish her spell, summarise the enormity of this feeling. So she concludes simply: I miss you.

The reply comes almost instantly, the beloved voice effervescent in Isobel's mind and sending delightful shivers down her spine.

Darling, I yearn for your blessèd presence more than words can say. I shall endeavour to show you most ardently upon my return. Eternally yours—

Isobel smiles at the sudden stop, clutches the thin remnants of her little wire to her chest. She wants to throw herself on her bed and giggle giddily like an enamoured schoolgirl. Wants to flee the tower and leave Reithwin behind immediately, running off to wherever Aylin was.

Instead she takes a deep breath in a room that feels slightly less cold and desolate, and prepares to go about another day.

-

The days have grown long and warm, but the spring showers have not yet begun. Aylin takes advantage of the light and flies back to Reithwin as fast as her wings can carry her - faster, perhaps, as she notes some soreness and a twinge of fatigue that her tireless self is hardly used to.

But it matters little, for she cuts the deliberately unannounced return trip from her long absence by almost half. Awash in self-satisfaction, Aylin sneaks up the stairs at Moonrise on subtle foot instead of flying up by resplendent wing. She reaches the second floor landing when an almost-expected, certainly-anticipated message rings out so musically in her mind.

I have seen this long winter to its bitter end, with nothing but thoughts of you to keep me warm. Will my reprieve come soon?

She knocks at the door, and Isobel opens it, then stares, agape. Aylin smirks, meets her wide eyes shining bright with joyful surprise, and sends her reply, gaze unbroken.

Momentarily, my dearest. I do so love when you spill your sweetness down my throat.

"Aylin," Isobel half-cries, half-hisses, flushed. She yanks Aylin into the room and kicks the door closed in one movement, then locks it in another. Yanks, again, Aylin down for a kiss, quickly followed by several more, frustration and delight mingling delectably.

Aylin grins into the kisses, then chuckles when Isobel nips at her lower lip. "Is vengeance not my most holy duty? Here is but some small restitution, for your… adventurous messaging, darling Isobel. Or is it that you would have preferred me speak the words aloud? I am more than willing—"

"Aylin," Isobel breaks her daze enough to twine her fingers in Aylin's hair and gently pull, urging her downwards. "Put that incorrigible mouth to better use, my love. I'm— it won't take very long."

Aylin follows and obeys, eagerly and happily. On her knees, large hands grasping at the softness of Isobel's thighs tightly, chastised mouth hot and willing and hungry.

-

Summer comes early that year, and stays late.

And so does Aylin. Perhaps it is her Mother's way of repaying her for a prolonged tour of duty. Perhaps Selûne merely wishes to spoil Her dear daughter. In any case, Isobel has no complaints whatsoever.

Aylin, it seems, cannot get enough of any of it. Not the vagaries of mortal life that she keeps discovering, nor the extended indulgence of this honeymoon.

"I have bathed in the silver waters beneath Argentil," she proclaims, "coasted through the timeless Astral Sea… but this… this is a wonder beyond even my reckoning."

The wonder is a perfectly average and perfectly divine day spent alone together. They are in Isobel's room, all of its doors and windows open to allow as much of the sweet-smelling late afternoon air in as possible. Entangled in each other upon an utterly mussed up bed, gloriously happy and sated.

"Nothing compares to this," Aylin murmurs her conclusion against Isobel's damp, tangled hair, and presses as close to her as plain, mundane, material flesh and skin and bone will allow.

Isobel frowns; the sweetness, unbidden, suddenly developing a bitter aftertaste. Her darling is a being of two worlds and Isobel has anchored her to one. When she is gone, what tether will remain, if any?

But that is not a contemplation for now. Not when Aylin's hands, always prone to wandering, start trailing some rather suggestive paths over her bare skin once more.

"Again?" Isobel laughs, though she cannot find it in herself to complain at all.

"Hmm," Aylin hums against her neck, which she now seems determined to entirely cover with kisses. "Call me a glutton, then. Name me… ravenous and insatiable. Dame Aylin has never shrunk from the truth."

"What else is she, this Dame Aylin?"

Aylin pauses and lifts her head to look at Isobel. Then she smirks, always all too happy to play along. "Proud, to be sure. Though not without reason, I should think."

"Oh?"

Aylin nibbles on the sensitive pointed tip of an ear, before whispering into it - and how delightful, Isobel muses, to face an opponent who knows all your weaknesses. "She does not need to weave spells and convey her words directly into her beloved's mind at inopportune times in order to make her blush, for one."

"Is that so? Well," Isobel smiles, turning to face her with a steely look in her eyes, unflinching in her challenge. "Prove it."

Aylin inclines her head, the picture of respectful obedience, save for the cheeky twist to her lip she is failing to suppress, and the telltale way her feathers have ruffled up. "As you wish. Let me first count the words, in the interest of complete fairness."

Within moments, she bends down to murmur against Isobel's ear again. "My darling, enticing within and without," each word Aylin accompanies by a light trail of fingers - under Isobel's chin, along her rib cage, up and then down the inside of each thigh. "Bids me drip upon her sheets my eagerness to receive whatever gifts she sees fit to bestow upon me."

"Not bad at all," Isobel replies, biting her lip to stifle her grin at the delightful frisson the words have invoked, and pressing her thighs together when Aylin's hand tries to venture further. "But why don't you try again?"

-

Your counsel is required on a crucial matter. Come to Moonrise at your earliest convenience. It is of vital importance that you do not delay.

It is Isobel's message, of course, but Aylin is struck by the tone of it. No endearments, and no playful teasing - utter seriousness.

I am on my way, beloved, worry not, Aylin replies, simply and swiftly. Then she frowns, turns to the assembly of merchants and tollhouse clerks Ketheric Thorm had drawn her into for incomprehensible and likely petty reasons, and excuses herself.

A few wing-beats, and Aylin has coasted across the breadth of half the town. A turn and a dash and she is flying up the imposing tower of Moonrise along most of its height, until she alights on Isobel's balcony. She herself is standing there, expectant, but entirely unperturbed and blissfully calm even in the chill breeze.

Aylin sighs, understanding what has transpired at once. "My darling, as grateful as I am for your valiant rescue, you cannot make a habit of this."

Isobel does not pout - it would be unbecoming. Instead she raises a clever eyebrow and smiles just so. "Oh? Whyever not?"

"What if you needed me urgently and I thought it merely one of your jests, your sweet games…"

Isobel smirks, maddeningly close, wildly beautiful. "But I always need you quite urgently." Then, upon seeing Aylin's frown, her teasing drops, and she amends with all seriousness. "If it has become uncomfortable, or if you don't like it for any reason at all, I'll stop, of course. Aylin—"

"No! No, no. It is not that. I enjoy it, I do. All of these delightful reminders… as if you were with me, always, even when I am leagues away. But soon…"

"Soon, there will be no need," Isobel finishes, reiterating that most solemn pledge. As soon as the season turns, as soon as the roads clear, the two of them are setting off on long-promised adventures of their own. Then she gives that little smirk again that makes her eyes glimmer with the most exquisite mischief. "But it can still be fun, regardless."

Aylin nods, then raises Isobel's hand for a kiss. "Shall we go inside, then, and see to this urgent matter?"

-

There are months that pass like days, and days that pass like years, and years that, in their passing, vary their span from decades to minutes.

And there is a period of Aylin's life when she would have named herself blissfully happy. Utterly content, even. But, however long it lasted, it could never have been long enough.

-

The first dagger comes out of nowhere; out of a darkness so complete the warm, diffused light of the hallway torches right outside the room does not even touch it. The force of it and the pain send Isobel to the ground. Her spear is kicked out of her hands, swallowed by the shadows.

She hears the assassin cry out in surprise, then hears Squire yelp.

Isobel seizes the distraction, drags herself along the floor, towards the brooch she has been using as a spellcasting focus, and the bit of wire clipped to it just in case, that has torn off her robes and skidded under her desk. But the assassin looms over her once more, twists the knife out of her back, and kicks at her hand again, and Isobel's lifeline is lost in the darkness, too.

The contents of her desk are strewn on the floor around her, most of them stained by the growing, concerningly large puddle of blood beneath her.

One of them is a scroll. Isobel reaches for it with rapidly numbing fingers, and starts to speak as it disintegrates in her hand.

"Aylin," she gasps out, just barely, "help."

The rest of the words go unused.

Miles away, Aylin is startled awake from her doze, awash in a cold terror that matches the icy winds outside, and knows it is too late.

-

Then there is a century of silence. But this, too, passes.

-

It is a honey-sweet molasses-thick summer afternoon when Isobel finally sees the sea. And as wondrous as it is in all its seemingly endless span before her, at the moment the most fascinating part of it is the droplets and rivulets that cling to and race across Aylin's skin. Gold, gold, gold, wherever she looks.

She presses a gentle kiss to her shoulder, wide, strong, solid, with an ancient oath Isobel herself has sworn: tenderness for Aylin, always, forever, to make up for a century of none and to fill up every crevice of her being. This time it is but a small measure poured from Isobel's lips, in exchange for the salty tang.

The water is a bit too cold for Isobel's taste - she did not go in past her ankles, and swiftly retreated to the sun-warmed sand they'd spread a blanket over. But she still gets a refreshing taste of it when Aylin rushes in up to her chest, spreading her wings and fluffing the feathers, flicking this way and that, working the water into all of her and showering Isobel with a pleasant spray. Her pure, joyful grin is utterly contagious, and her exclamations as she swims out make Isobel's heart swell.

Isobel reaches over to the satchel at her side, plucks out a scroll and sends I love you I love you I love you I love you until the words run out to Aylin, within glorious sight but just out of reach.

Aylin's surprise is evident as she starts, then turns to swim and wade back immediately. Her eyebrows shoot up almost comically as she catches sight of the entire armful of scrolls Isobel has packed away.

"My darling," she begins, as close to hesitant Isobel has ever seen her be, incongruously combined with her ever-impressive broad frame currently on such luxurious display. "Do you not find it beautiful, nay, miraculous, that should you have any desires, you need only ever lean closer and whisper them into my ear?"

"I do," Isobel answers, truthful and heartfelt, and awash anew in appreciation of all their hard-won blessings. "But for the sake of a little fun once in a while, I thought it couldn't hurt. Besides, the young master of Ramazith's Tower and all its endless magical riches owed us a favour, and obliged, no questions asked."

Aylin hums in understanding, and grins. "So," she drawls, in a beautifully and heatingly familiar tone, "does my beloved harbour any wishes of me?"

"Not for the moment," Isobel shakes her head but does not try to hide her sly smile. "Enjoy yourself - I was merely enjoying the view."

Aylin nods, but stays crouched next to her, eyes narrowed, intent. Then with little warning she scoops Isobel up in her arms, and ambles back through the sand and pebbles and into the sea. She effortlessly keeps Isobel above the surface of the chilly water - such casual thoughtfulness - and lets her instead be soaked by the clinging seawater warmed by her own endlessly warm body.

Isobel laughs and laughs and laughs, then throws her arms around her and kisses her sweetly.

Suspended, amber-clad and preserved in all its beauty, the moment lasts forever.

[izhunny]

Sorry if you were asked this before, but I was curious so figured I'd go ahead and give it a shot xD

What was the most challenging fic you've ever written? Be it in research needed, doubts you had to battle or straight up time and energy cost; what was the fic that made you most go like "I fucking did it!!" once you finished it? :D

I have not been asked this before and I'm thrilled to try to answer. 🤣

My knee-jerk response was: Oh that's easy! My first big (160k)fic Just An Old Fashioned Love Song.

I get a little wordy after this @loni4ever so it's all below the cut.

I wrote JaOFLS so quickly, in just a few months. I barely slept. Every spare second I was hunched over my laptop or my phone, typing or researching something. And I had no idea what story I wanted to tell at the start or how to do it. Except for the scene that became the 1st chapter. Originally it was to be the next to last chapter of a planned eight chapters. That scene was going to be the payoff. Hahahahaha. I like that I decided to lead with it and make it a glimpse of the future.

I ended up scrapping around 20-40k words (in a few big frustration deletion incidents) and restructured, reoriented, stopped worrying about brevity, or how badly I was doing it, and built what has been posted to the archive. 

My chapters are too long. The POV shifts wildly between all characters because I couldn't restrain myself to just one side of any conversation. So readers get to see inside everyone's head. A lot. Had to make sure the core characters' motivations were upfront(almost painfully not holding back anything). There's a fucking wall of tags on it 😓.

But I'm so proud that I not only tried but that I actually did it. No matter how unskilled the result or how absolutely terrified I was about sharing it, I did it. I wrote it. I created a fic all by myself based on experiences and dreams and wishes using every storytelling concept and trope that seemed useful. 

So, my knee jerk response was my first big, not terribly well written, fic.

But I thought again. 

I wrote a ghost story. Never dreamed I'd be capable of that. 

I put together a flashfic PWP writing challenge prompt list for myself to dismantle my own writing inhibitions. Just dipping my toes into smutty concepts, 500 words in one sitting a day. About half of those 45 fics aren't even E rated 😞. None are, I'd say, as properly titillating as I'd wish. (Though others have said parts are in fact steamy). But it was excellent practice. 

I finally wrote an actual sex pollen PWP fic (without 20k of backstory to get to the action).

I wrote a three fandoms of Holmes/Watson crossover fic (via a bit of blatant literary device magic) that pleases me greatly for having wished to do so for around ten years but waiting until I'd acquired enough skill to satisfy myself with the result. It was quite difficult to gut the canons as I did and research to worldbuild to make it come together. Extremely satisfying though.

Honestly? I get that "Holy mother of god, I fucking did it!" euphoria from every single fic or ficlet I've written and shared. 

Er, well, once I actually write the endings down for the first drafts. 

I get another little taste again once I've properly edited and start posting, and see someone else enjoys it. Still gobsmacked that fics I created to make myself happy give others a little happiness too. 

I think I may be getting a little better at writing with every effort. I'm definitely learning something each time. And that's thrilling. 

I don't know if this answers your question properly but thank you so much for asking. And feel free to ask about anything anytime.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was curious, as I understand, this story was written long time ago? Did you edit it with almost 10 years of practice on writing since 2014 now? And more in general, do you feel like writing is easier or not withos much practice (I read about smut, that it is harder now, but in general - worldbuilding, character creation and so on) ?

Hi hi anon!

Yeah the story was first drafted in 2014, and has gone through big edits since then (the latest being 2017, though I did some cursory stuff this year as well to just double check that it's not terrible).

Tbh, prior to 2014 I was writing like... very serious award winning short stories with tragic endings and winning awards for them, so I'm moderately confident the story is readable. I've been writing novels (for fun mostly) since 1995. And I have a university education in writing that started in 1999.

My fanfiction/serial style is very different to my 'I'm writing a book / I'm writing a short story' style.

I think it will feel different to my serials because I wrote it like a book, there's less sprawling character exploration, and the pacing is much, much tighter. There's a lot more focus on plot, and folks used to my serials might feel like the story ends really quickly! Because it's like much shorter (100k) than my serials.

If anything, I think these are the things to watch out for in Tradewinds:

100k novel means much tighter pacing and prose, and often very little time for too much character reflection.

Possibly not as much character exploration as people are used to from me (though there's still some!)

More plotting

Less smut, and the smut is also more 'vanilla' than what I normally write, because at the time I was a lot more wary about putting BDSM into the market. There are power dynamics though (i.e. a vibe where one character 'feels' more submissive to the other)

Robust scene-setting (i.e. description, place, anchoring)

Lively dialogue

I actually think I was probably a better literary writer back in the 00s but it wasn't much fun for me. I quit writing for a while and then picked it back up again to write fanfiction, which was easier and more relaxed for me. (And still is! The Ice Plague is an exception to that because it had more robust plotting and was structure more...formally.)

I honestly think writing gets easier or harder depending on the project and writing style involved.

Some writing gets easier with time, some doesn't. Sometimes that will flip or switch. Sometimes one thing is easy for years and then becomes harder with certain stories.

It was Gene Wolfe who said:

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

And yeah, I tend to believe for the most part that's true with how hard or easy something is. How ambitious a project is, its genre, its length, its complexity can all play into that.

I pick easier projects as my main projects right now, but I have hard projects coming up too!

I would say overall writing does become "easier" in the sense that foundational skills become second nature (I know how to build a character and their dialogue now without thinking about it, and while there's always more to learn, I can now start in a place of just knowing how to do that instead of knowing I need to learn how to do that), but that the stories themselves will still pose unique challenges to a writer.

Er so TL;DR yes writing for me is easier but I'm choosing easier things to write, and sometimes it's still very hard!!!

[solarsyrup]

Would love to hear your extended thoughts on totk (i haven't played it and only played about 10 hours of botw)

Oh boy! I've had a year to stew on this, so here we go!

...er, actually, before I really start tearing this game a new one, I have to acknowledge how central Breath of the Wild is to Tears of the Kingdom's shortcomings. While not championing (pun intended) Breath of the Wild, I do hope that comparing the two helps emphasize the many mistakes of Tears of the Kingdom.

Okay, with that out of the way, here's some stuff. A detailed and hopefully thorough examination of the faults of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, yes, but ultimately: stuff.

Why begin like this? Well, because Tears of the Kingdom LOVES stuff. There is a persistent and irritating theme across the game that you'll have more fun if they just keep dumping more things in your lap. More items, more enemies, more dungeons, more plot (well, sort of), more checklists to fill out, more stuff.

The game's central theme seems to be rebuilding, emphasized both with the general beats of the plot and the emphasis of the new construction mechanics. Certain other abilities were replaced, the weapons system received a major overhaul, and in something of a first for the series, you can actually acquire allies (of a sort) to fight alongside you.

There's a lot going on! I just wish that any of it was done well. Entire areas are introduced only to be practically empty. Central mechanics are a chore of almost hilarious repetition. Many elements introduced in Breath of the Wild were actively made worse.

In short: Tears of the Kingdom is a game that hopes it can dump enough stuff into your lap that you forget it's not actually good.

(If anyone is hoping to read this entire thing, I hope your butt is comfy; that was just the preamble.)

Before anything else, let's get the basics of the plot down: Ganondorf appears, Zelda disappears, and... well, actually, that's pretty much it. While Ganondorf's return and Zelda's whereabouts (spoiler: she was sent to the past and then turned into a dragon) provide the overarching impetus for the plot, very little else contributes.

Each of the major races introduced in Breath of the Wild faces natural phenomenon that endangers them (heavily alluded to be the handiwork of Ganondorf) but are otherwise mostly inconsequential to the narrative. Each arc concludes with a member of said race awakening as a sage and offering to lend their strength to Link, after they have acquired a mineral macguffin, a secret stone that —

Oh. Right. They're literally called "secret stones".

Call me nuts, but going in blind I was absolutely certain that they would be the titular "Tears of the Kingdom". Nope. Secret stones. I guess I'm the idiot for thinking that such a long development time would leave room for a second draft.

The narrative impact of solving these crises is virtually nonexistent. While the completion of each major dungeon in Breath of the Wild both freed the associated Divine Beast to help in the final fight and provided a useful power from its champion, Tears of the Kingdom instead opts to dump a nebulous promise of teamwork and and an eerie, green simulacrum to follow you around in the wilderness.

I cannot overemphasize how poorly implemented these "avatars" are, failing in almost every fundamental way. Rather than providing useful abilities at will, the player is left chasing after a dead-eyed NPC to activate practically worthless powers only when absolutely necessary. And far from providing a sense of camaraderie, the silent and omnipresent avatars can actually be unsettling. They're also miserable in combat, serving more as meat shields than a conceivable ally. To add insult to injury, the final sage — a GIANT ROBOT, no less — is borderline useless, thanks to the game's poorly-thought-out mechanics.

The practical shortfalls of Tears of the Kingdom is such a large topic that I'm practically forced to tackle it piecemeal. While larger constructions were the focus of much of the game's promotional material, I think the smaller Fuse mechanic serves as a better starting point.

A major point of contention within Breath of the Wild was the implementation of breakable weapons. With a very small handful of exceptions (namely, the ubiquitous Master Sword and the ever-recharging Bomb rune), weapons break after a set amount of use. Tears of the Kingdom attempted to remedy this situation by introducing Fuse — an ability allowing players to attach most items to weapons, shields, and arrows, increasing their stats and potentially giving them new properties.

This is a prime example of Tears of the Kingdom brazenly dumping stuff in the player's lap.

The system is an absolute mess. First, to encourage (borderline mandate) that the player engage with this new mechanic, the plot has decided that all weapons in Hyrule have degraded because of... plot. Making them anywhere near feasible for combat relies on using Fuse, meaning the player is in a constant loop of (essentially) gluing items to their weapons. Now not only are you scrounging for weapons, you're also looking for stuff to stick on to it — and reminding yourself to do so, as it's very difficult to do in the heat of combat. Adding insult to injury, there doesn't seem to be a particularly substantial increase in weapon durability after using Fuse. Some later-game items are sturdier, but their rarity makes them unappealing as mere monster mashers.

This leads into another issue with Fuse: constantly fighting for resources. Beyond previously-established uses from Breath of the Wild (making elixirs, cooking, selling, upgrading equipment, etc.), items are now also the means by which you strengthen weapons. Should you glue that horn to a sword, or will you need it for an upgrade down the line? Retrieving an item used this way isn't impossible, but it may as well be. And considering that you'll want to go into fights with weapons pre-Fused, players will constantly be scraping together more stuff just to keep their supplies healthy.

BOMB ASIDE: Okay, please forgive a moment of very specific nitpicking, but nowhere is the Fuse issue more evident than in the absence of bombs. In Breath of the Wild they were (obviously?) used to break cracked walls and as an emergency weapon. With their very notable departure, EVERY cracked wall in Tears of the Kingdom has a chance of spitting out rocks and rusty weapons when broken, just to keep up a supply of cracked-wall-smashing implements. So now even the WEAPONS THEMSELVES are needed for progression, and you have to keep gluing them together. Great!

This also applies to the game's Ultrahand power, allowing the player to cobble together vehicles, structures, and similar devices to complete quests and achieve goals. Aside from the ever-present need to collect more stuff (in this case, Zonai parts) to begin freely assembling these devices, the plain and simple fact is that they're cumbersome and — frankly — kind of lame.

Without going too in-depth (although, hey, if you're still reading this then maybe you'd be into that), the system is a slow process with a lot of room for failure. Misplacing parts frequently sabotages entire projects, trying to move individuals components is frustrating, and the results are generally unimpressive. Sure, there are interesting builds and neat combinations, but they're almost always more trouble than they're worth. More often than not, players will simply find spare parts littered around individual puzzles, slap together whatever the devs had in mind, and move on. Rather than feeling creative or ambitious, it feels like someone simply forgot to put the game together. More stuff.

But it's a good thing you can build vehicles period, because the game introduced entire new levels of Hyrule to explore: the sky and the depths. Each is ostensibly as large as Breath of the Wild's original map of Hyrule, both near-necessitate the use of Ultrahand and its construction abilities to explore, and both are some of the biggest wasted opportunities I've ever seen in a video game.

Both the sky and the depths are absolutely barren. While there are what I would loosely describe as "points of interest" in both, they hold surprisingly little importance. Oh, there are enemies to fight and chests to open aplenty, but it ultimately just acts as more stuff. More rupees. More minibosses. More materials for more upgrades.

Stuff. More stuff.

Since I've already gone this far down the rabbit hole, here's a running list of other bad design choices in Tears of the Kingdom that I can't feasibly include in an essay-style answer but are still worth complaining about:

The addition of caves throughout surface Hyrule was poorly implemented; Breath of the Wild noticeably shied away from using them for the exact reasons they stink here (difficulty in location and navigation, clumsy climbing mechanics inside, camera difficulties, etc.)

Quest and shrine rewards were noticeably less valuable, further prolonging the grind for materials and weapons

Having to upgrade the battery for Zonai devices isn't the worst idea; having to mine in the barren-ass Depths for the ore for it IS

The sheer amount of items in the game makes navigating menus and scrolling a constant issue, and even by mid-game trying to Fuse an arrow takes a preposterous amount of time

While I enjoy the boss designs, they (and their dungeons) are almost totally irrelevant to the plot. While I guess you could make the argument that this is truer to classic Zelda formula (most dungeon bosses being an unexplained monster) I feel like it doesn't hold up as well as the Blight Ganons' personal enmity with the champions

Many promising elements from Breath of the Wild (such as the Zonai mazes) receive zero explanation, relevance, or discussion, and many frustrating elements went completely unchanged (I cannot believe the Korok seeds/inventory upgrade system is the same beteween games, the mind BOGGLES)

The Zonai receive basically zero attention, except for heavily implying that one of Link's earlier incarnations was a Zonai? What a weird thing to purposelessly shoehorn in

Zelda is sent to the past for no other reason than to justify why this game also has ancient structures and technology, making it further baffling why the Zonai are essentially an afterthought to the game

I cannot overemphasize. Secret. Stones.

Shrines are much more of a chore thanks to the aforementioned issues with Fuse/Ultrahand

The house-building system is AWFUL and, just, straight-up, absolutely fails to capture what made the home-buying subplot of Breath of the Wild so beloved

Breath of the Wild's use of Malice (limited appearance outside of major dungeons) was much better than Tears of the Kingdom's use of Gloom (spreading it like peanut butter)

(also Malice is a way cooler name)

Huge tonal clashes throughout the game (trying to play up Ganondorf as a bigger threat than Calamity Ganon vs. mushroom mayoral election?)

The Master Sword absolutely sucks and reacquiring it is a huge letdown aside from the obvious "regenerating weapon" benefit

The Goron and Zora subplots are both awful, it feels less like you're saving a society and more like you're the janitor, the Zora plotline especially is just a miserable follow-up to Breath of the Wild's Mipha arc

Both Link and Zelda have significant alterations made to them that are completely undone at the end of the story, which really undercuts the whole "rebuilding" theme of the game

As much as I enjoyed Matthew Mercer's performance, Ganondorf really doesn't have much story presence and for most of the game her kinda just slides into frame every now and then like a Saturday morning cartoon villain

Speaking of squandered characters, poor Mineru is easily one of the best newbies and she gets like, absolutely nothing

...I liked Zelda's Breath of the Wild hairstyle better THERE I SAID IT

Tears of the Kingdom is a game convinced that if it hands you enough stuff, you'll stop worrying if it's any good or not. I've read that many of the new mechanics were originally conceived as DLC for Breath of the Wild, and I don't know if the devs understand what an indictment of Tears of the Kingdom that statement really is.

Because ultimately, that exactly what the game feels like. It feels like they took a completely different game and dumped some bloat on top of it — items, bosses, cutscenes, whatever.

And one of the most insulting aspects is that Tears of the Kingdom tries to frame it as freedom. You can build whatever you want! You can choose how to solve problems! The lack of cohesion is palpable, and it makes the entire experience feel like you, the player, are responsible for putting together any fun you want to experience. It's bizarrely apathetic.

I'm honestly surprised that more people haven't drawn comparisons to the likewise genre-twisting Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, considering the attention on mediocre vehicular gameplay and a similarly irreverent tone to its predecessor(s). It's uncanny.

...so anyway, there you have it. I had originally planned to have some kind of robust conclusion here, but I think I'm done with writing about all this... stuff.

[keepmeinmind-01]

Hello! So interested in exchange student AU and the dogs, but I HAVE to ask about plug in baby because that is giving me a weird image in my head.

thank you so much for asking @tina-mairin-goldstein :D

I'll go through them! I did a little too much writing last week and haven't managed much at all this week. No idea whether I need to rest and recharge or just get a bit more inspired LOL. But I can share some snippets—I write in chunks in the first draft stage so they're a bit everywhere, and these bits might not even make it into the final :')

Exchange Student AU

This is actually the prompt you gave me about a little Newt seeing Theseus and Percy together and being his accepting self!

A Second Person? Visiting the Scamander household?  Well—Second Person wasn’t trailing in. He seemed very confident and self-contained. In fact, Newt has always thought Theseus was exactly like that; but next to this shorter, dark-haired stranger, Theseus suddenly looked coltish and far too smiley. Newt clicked through the settings and accidentally zoomed in far too much on the stranger’s expensive-looking scarf.  Why does he want to spend time with Theseus? Newt mused, as most seven-year-olds with older siblings sometimes do: sure that his brother could hang the moon and stars if he tried, but chagrined by the pure bossiness their relationship seemed to entail enduring. 

Thesival Dogs

It's a one-shot (with several chapters LOL, I don't know if that stops it being a one-shot anymore). I started drafting this in a frenzy over four days because I felt bad about how kmim Theseus never really finds a partner he's comfortable with again. Losing those feelings of intimacy and trust forever hurt me. So, it's set sometime after the end of the election in kmim and kind of diverges from the rest of the outline I have planned for that long story. Theseus and Percival get into a sort of casual-sort of not relationship complicated by their respective traumas. When Percival accidentally triggers Theseus while they're working on a case together, they have to get through it and figure out how to re-negotiate the physical stuff. It goes well—well enough that Theseus accidentally summons his Patronus (a borzoi). But after Percival summons his (a German Shepherd) too, as a joke, the dogs stick around, so they spend the next day figuring out how to make them dispel and thinking about their relationship.

Nearer the start:

Each like a damning indictment—because of him, it could never be long term. Because it’s you, Theseus imagined, because it’s you, and it’s me, they could tangle their broken bodies together, but they couldn’t fix them.

Nearer the middle:

"Tell me how you imagined it," Percival demanded, voice roughening.  "I, ah..." Theseus faltered, uncharacteristically flustered by the heat kindling behind Percival's eyes. Get it together, Scamander. “Mmh?” “Er…” Theseus racked his brains, but it’d been weeks since he’d had a vaguely sexy thought. I thought it’d be nice seemed like a mood killer for someone as skilled in talking filth as Graves. And I love you was all of the steps too far. “You…hmm. You would…um. Or maybe I...or maybe not.”

Plug in Baby

This is named for a song by the band "Muse", because I always end up doing song lyric titles. I do have four other songs that fit wayyy better with the themes, plot points, etc, but even though Muse said they forgot what the song was about because they were high (LOL), there's something particularly good about this as a title imo. This is my dark!thesleta fic, where Leta joins Grindelwald at a rally and Theseus follows her. It's set in a world where Grindelwald and Dumbledore are much more organised and there are very partisan 'sides'. Theseus is less certain, trying to convince her to leave, but when something happens that makes him fall apart, Grindelwald has enough and brainwashes/reconditions him using a mixture of drugs and magic. The 'character is turned into a weapon against the ones they love' trope, basically. It goes downhill from there, and involves Newt, Tina, Grindelwald, and Dumbledore, focusing mostly on Theseus, Leta, and Newt. The ending is a bit bittersweet, but I'd say positive, given what happens. I'm curious what the image in your head was! Hopefully, no actual babies? XD

I have no big chunks of text for this one. Even though it's all planned in detail, it's being written in spotty chunks, so here are a few lines I've jotted down:

"You're getting better at this," Gellert said, removing the needle. His voice was approving, almost fond. "Hardly even a flinch anymore." How much did he require tonight? Surely his tolerance was not increasing this quickly.

Power still crackled through his veins like lightning seeking ground. He felt half-feral, drunk on destruction. Unstoppable.

[lovova]

I see artists doing little showcasings of what they've accomplished creatively in the last year, decided that looks fun, and decided I'd do for myself an little inventory of what I've written in the last year as well, based on archive posts and what I can recall (I specify 'what I can recall', because I was not keeping track of when I did or did not update my main fanfic "Video Game Cruelty Potential" so...guestimates for that fic! I have 36 chapters, I can probably guess it was updated at least every other month) ~ So! For 2023: January: Did a fan-fanfic for my friend Lex called "The Other Rooms" where I explored off-scene implications of his cool-ass fic Room No.5 February: Created an alternate version of VGCP called "VGCP: Characters at their best" where I tried to explore some of the chars in the same setting being more well adjusted. I haven't gotten very far in it, but I am determined to get back to it this year! Also probably updated VGCP March: Did two short Kaito stories, an Oumota called "Playing with Phobias" where Kokichi messes with Kaito and a Saimota called "Luminary Hero of the Track Field" where Shuichi worries over Kaito's enthusiasm to sports while sick. April: Started what was MEANT to be a multi-chaptered Homestuck!V3 Kaito fic called "The Devotion of the Luminary of Skaia", but I haven't gone back yet to figure out what happens next yet. Thinking about it now, I think I was to make it a three chapter fic, but I just need to save some space to go back and outline it someday. VGCP? Maybe? May: A short Oumota piece called "Carnation: Please Handle Gently" that I got some awesome art commissioned for by the incredibly talented Ere. This short story inspired me so much that I'm actually basing a new original novel on the same concept~

June: I (believe) this was the month I finished Kaiden! An omegaverse original story I was writing and posting to Kindlevella. I am super proud of finishing that piece, and while I want to go back and create a more refined second draft before selling it as an Amazon book, I still LOVE this version as well. Very proud~ And VGCP!

July: Two Oumota short stories, "Touring Mortality" and "Execution Failed". Touring Mortality was especially fun to write, though I was amazed at the positive feedback Execution Failed got. It was very uplifting XD This was also the month I (re)started my original story "Pearls and Shackles". Also probably VGCP August: More Pearls and Shackles, more VGCP. September: Pearls and Shackles! Probably more VGCP! Can't remember! October: Can you guess? PEARLS AND SHACKLES! VIDEO GAME CRUELTY POTENTIAL!! November: This was a purely Pearls and Shackles month, and that was because I dedicated NANO (National Novel Writing Month) to finishing it. AND I DID! It super needs a second draft, its not ready to show off, but it EXISTS! So hell yeah!

December: A funny short V3 story called "Soulmate Goose of Enforcement!" I had a lot of fun collaborating with this one with Lex, and am hoping to do a chapter 2 with another great writer added to the mix too, Andromebaa. I also started the first two chapters of a new novel manuscript, a Hanahaki story about a pair of lesbians struggling with love in their own ways, but both trying their best! And, also, I updated "Video Game Cruelty Potential"

Did I overestimate how often I updated VGCP this year? Underestimate? I have no idea, that fic is almost 300,000 words long by this point, let's call an update every other month a generous average of how often I add to it. Other then VGCP, I did 8 Short Fanfics, finished a book, started and finished another book, and started a third book. And I'm not counting stories I had to write for my school year. Just ones I did out of the passion in my damn heart.

So, yeah! I'm pretty proud of this year, it was a good one. I hope anyone reading this had just as good a year! Writers, steal this idea, go looking back the year and brag about what you accomplished! You deserve it!

Have a good 2024 everyone!

[1jemmagirl22]

Okay so I've been really busy for months and I'm finally gonna like post the two dozen tumblr posts about the obsessions I've been in since fucking May, seriously they are all saved in my drafts and in need of editing, but damn it if I'm not gonna comment on the Gilded Age first. Should I be back logging from SAB to Percabeth to Game of Thrones to Nancy Drew to ER before I do this? Most definitely? Will I be doing that? Of fucking course not so sit the fuck down mutuals I'm about to unload about the bloody fucking Gilded Age.

So I adore The Gilded Age in like this really twisted way, but damn is it good. So when I started season 2 and found myself, dare I say board, I was a bit scared what one of my friends said about the premiere would be accurate, bot was I wrong, no no, it was boardroom, it was annoyance so let's discuss the pros and cons of the Gilded Age season 2 episode 1 as well as what I hope to see in the coming episodes and what I absolutely love and want most about this show.

Okay cons first cause those are easier. The opening is boring. There is a substantive lack of Larry Russel in the episode. And worst of all, it's not, what's the word, a good opener. Ya that's the word. the first half hour is boring and the second half brilliant. It's suffering a bit from what I'd like to call second season syndrome, some shows produce a season 2 opener even better than it's premiere episode (The West Wing, Agents of Shield, Game of Thrones, Grey's Anatomy, and many more), others, however, don't, and Gilded Age did not, at least at first. The slow opening, mainly the whole undetermined time jump thing, really doesn't help with that either.

Now with that out of the way, the pros! Okay so, let's see Marian, Oscar, Larry, Gladys, and Mrs. Russel were all in top form. The acting as always was impeccable! The ending was *chefs kiss* dramatic perfection. And of course the costumes and the sets, oh perfection. But most of all, my favorite pro from season 2 episode 1 was the characters and the ships!

Okay so let's list shall we.

I'm gonna start with Oscar. Love how he's got like an actually arc this season, we given him some development, we're given him some social shift, oh it's gonna be brilliant! I love him and Gladys, I love him and his romantic friend who I';m sure was named at some point but I've forgotten cause it's been a while since I watched season 1. I love all of it! I'm so excited to see the chaos develop as the season progresses.

Next up, the Irish maid the the American footmen (I know they have names but It's too late to dig out the imdb and I don't remember their names) They were adorably angsty in season 1 and now they keep being adorable and angsty. All I have to say is please of fucking please Julian Fellows don't you Fucking dare pull a Daisy and William on them. Okay? Okay?

It would be a crime to not also mention Mr. and Mrs. Russel, the power couple goals those two give off are so amazing! Honestly worshipable.

And last but not least the only ship not present in this first episode, and annoyingly the ship I adore most, Larry and Marian! Gods I adored the so obvious chemistry friends to lovers vibes they had going for them in season 1, and Fitzsimmons I feel I'm gonna be neglected some of those vibes this season. I desperately hope Larry returns from Rhode Island soon, and even more so interact with Miriam, look I know the trailers say he's gonna have an affair but I'll be dammed if that stops me shipping their chemistry (Should I list the ships I've shopped who weren't together and actually with other people for long stretches of time in the last month alone? I'll do it anyway. Nancy and Ace, Carol and Doug, Magnum and Higgens like three separate Grey's Anatomy ships, Beth and Benny, like probably something else too it's been a busy month). Anyways I'm so excited to see more of them, fingers crossed for episode 2. Anywho hope everyone has a lovely day while I sink into another ship relapse *looks at Paramount+* ooo, I should relapse in 5-0!

[frogsandfries]

Y'know what? Those authors of the philosophy "do substances and then do writing" are abso-fucking-lutely correct.

Unfortunately, they didn't account for also writing at the right time of day. Which is also a charm.

So I personally hated chapter two; I was working within the source material. But chapter two was the train ride, chapter three will be either the journey to the Sorting or that plus the Sorting feast, depending on where I can break things. Chapter four might end up being leaving the Great Hall for the common room. At this point, I haven't really had any opportunities to really diverge from the source material, but if I remember correctly, Hermione is kind of a loner for the first several weeks of term. What if she was already working on a justice project? Maybe she barely even noticed the passage of time because she was busy studying and working on this project?

It is unfortunate that the right time of day for me is only about 10 or 11pm till about 1am. At least while I'm sick, I can't really stay up that late, otherwise it would probably be more like two or three in the morning. I don't sleep well, so I'm kind of forced to sleep more.

My sister was doing something with the freezer and found this salmon that I thought had been eaten. I had some teriyaki sauce left over, so I had that with the rice I made yesterday, and some frozen veggies. With something like chicken, which I had yesterday, the recipe of teriyaki sauce I made was really ginger-y, but with the fish, it was excellent. Then I had to have some pretzel bits, and ice cream. I haven't really been eating because I don't really want to gag up my dinner (that's happened before), and there isn't really anything in the house easy to eat to save me the energy and effort.

Tomorrow, I want to try to make these orange scone cookies, probably with cranberries somehow (we have dried and canned), and definitely some kind of icing (ideally orange, but we'll see). The dining room really needs to be cleaned, and the living room sure could do with a clean. The upstairs hall, all the way down the stairs needs to be cleaned too. The seat I like to use needs to be vacuumed because it keeps making me allergic. The shower curtain should be washed. There's a lot to be done and not enough spoons to go around. With my NM business delayed, I can get to the ER earlier than I expected and try to get something I'm not allergic to, to help with my asthma.

I'm also expecting some follow up information about exactly what happened in NM, plus maybe some contact on some other business I'm trying to get sorted.

I love when I'm really in my groove in my notes/original draft. Who doesn't love the feeling of just absolutely flying through scene after scene? And then, while you're recharging, you go back and start to review your material, go back and start your first draft (I was raised to believe in the Zero Draft, so for me, the first draft is what you get after you've vomited all over your physical or digital paper). And if you don't have enough runway to do that, you start to pick at your second draft, and then hell, it's just a fanfic, mechanically I'm a good enough writer, I just type it right up for AO3. Who needs to put the draft away to cure for six months? Pffftt not me! (I am absolutely just kidding; I absolutely will get to the end of some point and go back and reflect on this first part--no, I haven't decided if I might break this story down by the school year.)

Plus, I really would like to get this project out of my way. Which is hysterical of me to say. I wonder how long it's actually going to take (and how long until I get a job finally, and how that's going to slow me down). Luckily, about 30% of the material is already written. I think it's 30%..........maybe once I get more into what Hermione gets up to without the boys......

[sunspray-peak]

Ch. 36: Celebrating You! Just You!

THURSDAY - FALL 18

With the double hit of Alex’s enthusiasm and his encouraging visits to Meteor Elementary, Achilles had managed to push all thoughts of Eddie Bloomsbury to the side, charging full speed ahead on his little writing side project. And when Achilles went full speed ahead, you best be assured that his commitment was unmatched.

It wasn’t surprising that he had finished a first draft in only a matter of days—to be fair, it wasn’t long—just 25,000 some words, and his first drafts often read more like glorified outlines than actual manuscripts. But even so, it wasn’t nothing.

But neither was it anything, really, to be particularly proud of. Just a lot of nonsense. Nothing extraordinary. Children’s literature. Supernatural still, of course. Although this was perhaps a bit older than Henry Spector’s target audience—fifth or sixth grade rather than second or third, but he had always believed those cutoffs were all just arbitrary lies created by publisher’s to market and sell more books. Let people read whatever the hell they wanted to read, free from judgement.

He had done a bird’s eye outline of his adult novel—his “real” project—over the past few days as well, but he found it’d been difficult to focus. He knew it was a good idea, or at least, felt that it was a good idea. He had something he wanted to say, dammit! It was just… hard.

But now that he finally had that silly little side thing under his belt, perhaps it would be easier to finally really zero in his efforts on his Real Project. His Next Big Thing. Achilles’ Come Back to the Respected Literary World. Maybe. He’d have to finish writing the damn thing first. But that was what today was for! Yes, that was the plan for today.

At least, until he received an exuberant knock on his front door.

Elliott was on his porch, standing even taller than usual while bouncing on tip-toes, hands all aflutter.

“I’ve done it, my friend!” Between his large fingers was what must’ve been a nearly four inch thick stack of pages.  

“Pardon?”

“I’ve finished! The first official draft of Camellia Station is complete! And of course, to have done it without you, my dear, dear friend, I certainly could not have!” Without waiting for an invitation, Elliott crossed the threshold into Achilles’ home and, in a tight embrace, lifted him square off his doormat.

Well. This was quite a turn of events. So much for today’s plan.

Achilles was struggling to free his hands from his pockets—Elliott’s hug was awkwardly pinning his arms to his sides—and so waited for Elliott to set him back on the floor before pulling the man in for another (less twirly) hug, as well as the classic Stardew Valley clap on the back. “Congratulations, Elliott, that’s amazing!”

“Could not have done it with you, my friend, could not have done it without you.” Elliott dabbed his eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Your unfailing encouragement, your generous advice, and your constructive notes… oh what a frabjous day it was for Elliott St. Laurent when Achilles Desrosiers decided to move to Stardew Valley!”

During their triweekly lunches, Achilles had read a few chapters here and there of Elliott’s romance novel. It admittedly wasn’t the genre he usually erred towards, but nevertheless, he had surprisingly (though he would never admit his surprise to either himself or Elliott) found Elliott to be a strong writer—the plot, if basic, was charming; the action sequences striking; the love triangle palpable. What had been most intriguing, though: Elliott had proven to be significantly more concise in his written words than his spoken.

All in all, Camellia Station was a strong novel. A strong adult novel. One with… to reference a review written by one who shall not be named, literary merit. And potential.

That being said, Achilles resolved to put a lid on the bits of envy already bubbling in his stomach—Elliott had been working on his romance novel for over five years now, the man deserved to share his joy untainted. And a debut, no less.

Achilles gestured weakly towards the shoe rack as he sought to find his voice. “Oh, Elliott, please no, this is all you… come, take a seat, let me get you a drink…”

Elliott followed him to the living room before Achilles scurried to his fridge for some lavender lemonades.

“My dear friend, I do hope you will be able to join me in an evening of, shall we say, both celebration and libation?”

“Of course! What were you thinking—”

“Ah hah! And what is this?” Elliott, too excited to take a seat, had left the living room to join Achilles in the kitchen, and was now pointing at the dining table where Achilles had left the scattered outline pages he had been planning to spend today cracking. “How is your writing going, my dear friend? Anything of which I can perhaps be of assistance?”

“Ah. Well…” Achilles quickly slid over the bottle of lemonade and gathered his notes, straightening them against the table. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Elliott waggled his finger as he took a sip from the drink. “You always told me, ‘never is it nothing!’ That writing anything at all was an achievement in and of itself!”

Yeah, but I didn’t actually believe it. At least, not for myself.  

The thoughts he kept inside, but it was easy for Elliott to interpret Achilles’ silence as disagreement, and so her further urged, “Please, my friend, I kindly request you celebrate any and all your achievements in the manner that they deserve!”

Achilles forced a chuckle. “They’re just notes, Elliott, that’s all. You know, I did actually finish something this morning, too, but—”

Elliott rose from the kitchen chair with a gasp and a rather impressive kick of his heels. “Achilles! That’s incredible news, we must allow ourselves both a celebration—”

“No, no, no, no, no. It’s nothing. I mean it, just some silly little thing.” Now these,” he tapped the crumples pages in his hands, “How about when I finish with this one, I’ll hit you up and we can have ourselves—”

“We shall celebrate. Tonight”

“Yes, we shall! Celebrate! You! Just you!” But his words fell on deaf ears as Elliott paced around the kitchen, hands clasped together deep in serious thought, even though Achilles was about 99% sure Elliott was going to suggest—

“The saloon! Why don’t we have ourselves a late lunch! Or perhaps it is now early dinner.” Elliott checked his watch. “All the stops!”

“Right. Sure. Fine. Let’s do it. Why not?” Achilles glanced at the open pages of today’s planner entry. Eh. His novel could wait.

*****

“Now my dear Achilles, I was hoping… perhaps, if you happen to have some choice spare hours in your day, and allow me to emphasize—only if you have this available time, especially as I now know you have just completed a novel of your own—”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a novel—”

“—but if you do, I humbly ask if you would be able to...”

Elliott had trailed off, hands steepled together.

“Take a look?”

“Why yes! That exactly! I would be incredibly honored if your eyes could spare a minute—”

“Absolutely. It’d be my honor.” Thought it’d definitely require more than a spare minute…  Achilles eyed the thick stack of pages, which were now safely secure in a two inch binder he had dug up in one of his suitcases.

This final bit of business now taken care of, Elliott slid his arm cheerily into Achilles’.

“Now, Ell, you called it a first draft earlier—is it really? I feel like you’ve had quite a bit done for awhile now.”

“Oh ho, I suppose if one were to define a first draft as the very first completed and whole version of a novel, then these six hundred or so pages here—which you have so kindly hole punched for me —do qualify! You see, my friend, I have always revised heavily as I go, so while this is indeed the first time these pages have truly come together in a wholly coherent manner of my satisfaction, the scenes themselves have individually gone through countless and countless iterations!”

Personally, it didn’t sound much like a first draft to Achilles, but this was not a battle worth fighting.

600 pages. Sheesh! Now that was an accomplishment in and of itself. Apparition had been scarcely 300… not that length mattered, but even so, hearing Elliott recount his work, his dedication, his pride…

Useless. Why do you even try—move on, you bastard. Do something else.

Achilles had to shamefully remind himself one again to squash that bitter seed threatening to take root. Not that Elliott had noticed any sort of dark energy emanating from his companion—no, the writer was far and away distracted by his own beams of bubbling euphoria, half-skipping down the path to Pelican Town.

“Oh, my dearest friend! Is this how you felt, all those years ago when you completed your very first novel? And is it like this every time—oh, please don’t tell me, I would be loathe to learn that this rapturous thrill I feel will fade. No, for now, at this moment, I shall allow myself to fully embrace this delectation, for I feel like light itself!

“This gem for which I have spent years and years mining has finally been unearthed—naturally, it still needs polishing, but I suppose never is it too early to beseech the universe, to kindly ask that someone see its potential and set it in a diamond ring for the whole world to one day bare witness. Imagine!” Elliott’s eyes shone as he held the binder to his chest. “Camellia Station: a novel by Elliott St. Laurent. In a bookstore near you.”

*****

“To us!”

The two were sitting in the same saloon booth they had sat in so long ago during their very first dinner at the beginning of Summer. Elliott had immediately called for champagne, and was now raising his glass for what would likely be only the first of many toasts.

“Barman! Gus, my dear fellow, Achilles and I have both finished a first draft of our novels— please, join us in our celebration and have a glass yourself!”

“Well, that’s a cause for celebration indeed! Don’t mind if I do.” Gus hurried to give himself a pour and the three clinked their glasses.

“So, please, tell me, my friend. What is next?” Elliott doffed an invisible cap as Gus returned to the kitchens. “Ah yes, thank you, dear barman!”

“What’s next? For you or for me?”

“Oh! Look at me. Utterly selfish, a complete embarrassment… A thousand apologies, Achilles, I’m afraid I was asking for myself.”

Achilles only laughed at Elliott’s remorseful, hangdog countenance. Remarkable how rapidly those hazel eyes could flit through a whole spectrum of emotion.

“Well I mean, I’ll read your novel, Elliott, but whenever you feel like you’re feeling pretty good about it, you might as well start sending it to agents. I’d give you the name of the one I had, but she doesn’t really do romance novels. Or adult lit.” After a beat, he added, “She also probably never wants to talk to me again, so there’s also that.”

Emily had now come over with a plate of crab rangoons in her hand. “On the house!” Looking at each of them in turn, she added, “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Oh year dear Emily, yes they are! Please, join us!”

“I guess it’s slow enough right now, I should be fine for a quick bite, right?” With a wink, she took a seat next to Achilles and popped one of the complementary rangoons into her mouth. “So Elliott, word on the street is that you’ve written a romance—tell me more…”

*****

Word had quickly spread among the small town—even Lewis had paid them a quick visit, purchasing two of Gus’ cheapest ales for the pair.

“Fantastic,” the mayor had said, thumping Elliott’s back. “We’re real proud of you, Elias—you’re well on your way to becoming an upstanding member of this community!”  

After Lewis was Caroline, after Caroline Robin, and after Robin came Willy, each purchasing more drinks than the last.

“My friend, if this is the scene for mere drafts, imagine the festivities when we publish!” Elliott exclaimed, raising his champagne glass in what must’ve been his tenth toast, though Achilles had long switched to tea.

Leah had joined them just as the dinner rush began to start, enveloping Elliott in a tight hug accompanied by a peck on the cheek that turned him redder than the cherry tomatoes Achilles had been shoveling into his mouth. “Honestly, Elliott… you can’t deliver this kind of news over text! Congratulations!”

Elliott can afford texting?

“And you! Snaps to you, too, Achilles.” He merely waved aside her congratulations, knowing she’d steamroll over the “we’re just celebrating Elliott” that he’d been parroting to their other well-wishers all afternoon, but Leah still insisted on giving him an awkward hug from across the table. “Stardew’s got two published writers now, eh? Bet Lewis is happy…”

“Please, just one,” Elliott hurried to correct, still slightly pink in the face. “I have not quite reached that stage yet—but let us manifest!”

“Yeah, yeah, you will, I’m sure of it.”

Emily, who had dropped by with another tankard of ale for Leah, turned towards the front door which had just swung open. “And here comes the rest of town—goodness, Abigail, what happened to your face?”

“Got in a real nasty fight with a raccoon,” Abigail said, giving Achilles a rather obvious wink with her one good eye. The other was swollen and bruised purple. Achilles felt his stomach tighten at the sight and sweat began to dot his palms—what had happened down in the mines? Were the spirits getting worse?

Abigail leaned against their table, flanked, per usual, by Sam and Sebastian.

“Nah, just kidding, just bad luck with a grid ball. Who knew Seb had such an arm, right? Don’t worry. Now a little bird told me celebrations are in order…” Without any indication of embarrassment, she roughly ruffled Elliott’s hair (Achilles’ smoothly dodged her hand). “It’s time to par-tay! Next round’s on me. And by me, I mean ye olde Pierre, the old man.”

Or perhaps everything was fine, and whatever had happened down there had just been an unfortunate accident. Those were bound to happen at some point, right? Really, it was a miracle she had managed to escape so unscathed thus far, probability had to catch up at some point…Abigail was clearly still in high spirits, there was nothing to worry about… if there were, she’d let him know. Or Marlon would let him know. Right? He’d asked them to keep him in the loop…

“So. What kind of book?” Sebastian asked, turning to Achilles. “Horror?”

“Oh, we’re actually just celebrating Elliott,” Achilles said quickly, nodding at the binder. Luckily, both Leah and Elliott were too distracted with the dinner menus Emily had brought over to correct him. “Camellia Station. It’s a romance.”

Sebastian’s face was impassive. “Eh.”

*****

At 6 o’clock, Alex, Haley, and Penny arrived together, fresh from the bus, their respective gym, camera, and messenger bags still hanging across each of their shoulders.

“Now, we’ve heard conflicting news, Achilles, so you’ll have to clarify for us.” Haley pulled him into a stilted hug and kissed him on both cheeks (she did not do the same with Elliott). “Are we celebrating you and Elliott or are we just celebrating Elliott?”

“Just Elliott—”

“Why the two of us, of course!”

“Nothing to celebrate,” Achilles grunted. This was getting tiring.

“Don’t listen to the man,” Elliott said, waving an exuberant hand dangerously close to his sixth tankard. “Achilles here has finished a splendid draft of a novel as well!”

Achilles snorted into his tea as Elliott shook his head in disbelief. “Dear friends,” (at this, Haley gave a derisive little laugh), “I must request—if I possess this same blasé attitude after writing my seventh book—Yoba willing—please give me a right good shake!”

“No thanks,” Haley sniffed before turning back to Achilles. “Well. Whatever the fuck you think, we are very excited for you. Alex, no, you go ahead and sit down, I’m going to the bathroom—Penny, come with?”

Alex slid into the booth just as Emily, who was really being kept on her toes tonight, once again came back over to take the newcomer’s orders and refill the waters.

“We really need more celebrations like this! What a lovely energy we’ve got going on here tonight, I rarely ever see the saloon this crowded in the Fall. I expect Haley will want a coconut water… Alex?”

“Can I get an apple juice? And maybe some pancakes and eggs?”

“You got it!”

*****

“So… can I see?” Alex was already reaching for the binder that Elliott had set squarely in the center of the table.

Alex leafed through the neatly penned pages (so unlike your crusty, ink-stained outlines… Achilles thought with a squirm of displeasure) eyes wide in admiration even as he struggled to decipher the tight handwriting.

“Dang, Elliott. This is a lot. I’m real impressed. Gotta admit, not really much a romance kind of guy, but you bet I’ll be buying a copy.” Alex slid the binder back and turned to Achilles, giving him a sharp, upward nod. “And where’s your papers?“

“Don’t have them on me.”

“A likely story.”

“I’m serious. Probably wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, a lot of it’s in shorthand. And my handwriting’s ass.” And none of it makes sense. And it’s just plain bad.

“Now you’re just making up excuses.”

“You’ve seen my handwriting, it’s atrocious—it’s why I used to type a lot more. Had this beautiful Émile Horst typewriter that I wrote almost all my previous shit on. But I threw it out six years ago. And then set it on fire. A computer really just isn’t the same… Suffice to say, not a decision I look back on fondly.”

His booth mates didn’t even bother to hide their quizzical looks.

“Why… would you do that?” Leah asked.

Why would you share that? Must’ve been the champagne.

Achilles pretended not to hear. Lucky for him, Haley and Penny chose that moment to return, pulling two more chairs to the head of table.

“I won’t stay for long, have a lot of photos to edit—an engagement,” Haley explained, picking a tiny pink umbrella out from her drink. “Though why anyone would choose to get engaged in Zuzu is beyond me, it’s the least sexy spot I’ve ever set my eyes on.”

“Oh yeah? You can say that again…” Leah said, darkly stabbing her falafel. “So. What do you think is the best place to get engaged, Haley?”

“Hmm, the beach maybe.” Haley batted her eyelashes ever so slightly. “Now someone tell me, who on earth ordered the pancakes and apple juice? It’s 6:30pm.”

*****

“Why don’t you ever want to celebrate yourself?” Alex asked, after the group (namely Elliott) had finally agreed to call it a night.

It was just them two now, turning south down the moonlit path towards the cemetery. Elliott had given everyone another hug and kiss on the cheek before skipping—actually skipping—back to the beach.

“What are you talking about, you know there’s nothing I love more than celebrating myself.”

“Ash, come on. You know what I’m talking about. Tonight—”

“There was nothing to celebrate,” Achilles said with a small shrug. “I’ve written like a million first drafts in my life, Al. Not a big deal for me. It was Elliott’s moment.”

“Real generous of you. I’d almost believe it if you hadn’t looked like you wanted to kill yourself whenever you thought no one was looking.”

“Ok, I didn’t look like I wanted to kill myself—”

“Nope, you can’t fight me on this. No mirrors buddy, I see you a lot better than you can see yourself.”

The words gave Achilles pause, though likely not for the reasons Alex suspected.

Though he rarely pushed, Alex had proved to have had a knack of seeing through Achilles’ poker face and pinpointing the anxiety and frustrations bubbling within. And he had also proved, that, despite mostly shying away from preaching or giving any direct advice, he had had a peculiar gift, for lack of a better word, for easing Achilles’ aforementioned melange of vexing emotions.

Besides Abigail’s black eye reveal, he had barely thought of the mines since his chat with Alex. And here the man was again. Ready—eager even—to listen to Achilles’ anxieties and his woes and his millions of problems all the while asking for nothing in return.

Achilles wasn’t used to this. Out of practice, really. He hadn’t had a friend like this in nearly a decade, as embarrassing as it was to admit it to himself.

He sighed—Yoba, sighs must’ve 50% of what came out of his mouth these days.

“It just… it doesn’t mean much, Al. Not compared to Elliott. I was writing because I just needed something to do. It’s not… real literature or shit, like Elliott’s is. It’s not going to be anything. It was just for fun.”

“Eh…” Alex stopped in his steps. Filling the silence, he knelt to pick up a stray pebble from the ground before hurling it aimlessly in the air. It clattered against Lewis’ roof. “Whoops, didn’t mean to do that— Okay, I know I don’t read, but what even is real literature, though? And what do you mean it’s not going to be anything, you’re not going to try to publish? Come on, I’ve been waiting six years for my favorite author to come out of retirement, this is just unfair.”

Achilles laughed, watching as Alex flung another pebble totally-not-towards Lewis’ house. “‘Favorite author’—you just said don’t even read, you twat. Anyway, six years is nothing. There are authors out there who have decades in between their books.”

“Oh ho, so you’re saying there’s a chance…”

Again, he laughed, but this time Achilles quickly moved to add, “Al, I appreciate your support. You’re… a good friend. A good fan, really, but I just don’t think I can bring myself to do it again—”

“Achilles, I’m going to be straight with you.” Alex dropped the pebble and turned to better face Achilles. “I think you’re the coolest person in Stardew Valley. Hey, maybe even all of Ferngill, maybe even the world.”

Achilles rolled his eyes. “Drank too many celebratory ales tonight?”

“I mean, Elliott is cool too, but I mean, like I said earlier, do I really look like a guy who knows how to appreciate romance? I don’t understand that stuff. But you’ve just… you’ve done it before. I don’t see why you can’t do it again. I mean, I guess the real question is, do you want to? Because to me, if kind of feels like you want to, and you know what you always say about things people want to do, they have to all ‘fully commit’—”

“I don’t know if I want to. I shouldn’t want to. I’m not good at it.”

“Achilles—”

“It’s just… all I’ve written is nonsense. Just a bunch of words.”

“Aren’t all books ‘just a bunch of words?’”

“Yeah, okay, smart ass, but some books do a much better job putting those words in order. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m bad. I know I’m not bad. I just… don’t think I’m good either.”

To this, Alex had no response, and in a way, Achilles was grateful. He didn’t want advice. He was just wanted an ear.

Alex set down the stone in his hand.

“Hey, come sit with me for a bit. Moon’s pretty bright tonight.”

“Done beating up Lewis’ house?”

“Yeah, thought I saw a shadow in the window…”

Achilles followed Alex to Dusty’s pen, where they sat against the fence. Seeing Achilles survey the shadows of the space, Alex added, “Dusty’s inside. Probably sleeping in one of his four beds, real height of luxury, that dog doesn’t know how good he has it…”

He chuckled and turned his attention to tearing out stalks of grass instead, as Alex gazed upwards at the stars.

“You know, I looked him up.”

“Hmm?” Achilles looked up from the sloppy 3x3 inch mat he had managed to weave over the past five minutes.

“Eddie Bloomsbury. I looked him up. After you mentioned him a few weeks ago.”

“…oh.”

“He’s dead.”

“Yeah. I know.” Achilles abandoned his blades of grass, but Alex was still looking at the stars, leaning back on hands that were only an inch or two away from Achilles’ own.

“I’m really excited for what you’re writing, Ash. And I think you should prove him wrong, if you want to. For your own sake.”

[godsofdeathloveoranges]

I started a draft on the answer but i guess it didnt save or tumblr sent it to the void 😔

But i'll type out again and hope I didnt forget anything-

OH and before I forget

This post by @huyandere is what inspired this idea and I must state the artwork in this post is theirs, not mine!

(Major spoilers for both series)

I think Near and Makoto are surprisingly similar, in ways you wouldn't expect at first glance! Both are kind of the heroes of their story (yes i know it was mainly L, but it switched to Near for the second half, and Mello was sort of an anti-hero), and both are the ones to take down their respective big bad (Light for Near, Junko for Makoto).

There's also the fact that both prefer more peaceful, or at least non-violent solutions. Makoto is a pacifist, and Near would rather solve the Kira case and bring Light to justice that way, even though the easiest and quickest way to get rid of Kira would be to just kill him (something Near even admits to).

They're both also misunderstood by their fandoms- both got a lot of criticism for being "bland" or "two-dimensional", and Near especially gets criticism for being "emotionaless" (not true lol). They're seen as not as good as their 'counterpart'- Mello is usually more liked than Near, and Hinata more liked than Makoto (in an Danganronpa AU i can actually see Mello being a mix between Hinata and Komaeda but thats for another day).

There's also the fact that both take on the leadership role of their respective teams- the Future Foundation/DR1 survivors for Makoto, and Near for the SPK. They're also both not very well liked by their allies LOL- the Future Foundation seems to be working more against Makoto then with him in dr3, and the Kira Taskforce aren't exactly fond of Near, though they do work with him more amicably then the FF does with Makoto LOL.

They also take on a title/legacy- Near becoming 'L', and Makoto becoming the 'Ultimate Hope'. They also have a predecessor- Near and L, and Makoto with Kyoko's father (I mostly ignore dr3 but i suppose if u like the headmaster Makoto thing that applies here).

This one's more aesthetic but similar heights (5'2 and 5'0) + short floofy hair lol.

(Largely its also just that both are my favourite, LOL. I also saw this fanart by and was like yeah ok make it happen people)

Onto Mello and Nagito!

This one's a bit harder, because, as I said, I actually see Mello as being a bit more of a mix of Hinata and Komaeda (+ I suppose Near is more like a mix of Makoto and Kyoko as well).

The main reason is just that I like meronia and komaegi, so i was like "yeah put em together), but there's also a reason why Mello reminds me of Komaeda too.

One, is the theme of explosions/fire with them. Mello has both an explosive personality, and is often associated with fire/explosions. He gets a zuko-esque scar in an explosion he triggered, and then also his body is burned in a fire set off by Takada. On the flip side, Nagito also has these kinds of moments. There's the bomb he sets off in chapter 5(?), and the others he has hidden around the Island. Then there's also the fire he sets off for his death.

Going off of that, the two essentially act as elements of chaos in their stories. They are both the 'wildcards', unpredictable, intelligent, but acting in ways that are not only violent/result in violence, but often shake things up. That's another thing- they both push the story along. They're the "do-ers". They both take an extremely active role, and push the other characters into acting when they otherwise wouldn't. Mello's hand forces Kira/Light to make a move. Nagito incited the first murder. They're both unique characters in their story, often very different to the other characters- Nagito is the stand-out character in his game without a doubt, and Mello, whilst not as popular as L or Light, is incredibly unique to other main characters, being the anti-hero (unless you count Light as one, which I don't).

That's another thing- they're antiheroes.

(Just look at them... chaos incarnate)

Both are antagonistic to the hero of the story (I'm saying hero and not protagonist, 1) because Near isnt the protagonist and 2) because Light isn't a hero), and actively cause problems and act as obstacles to the heroes... whilst at the same time, opposing the actual villain. They walk the line between black and white, good and bad- both are working towards admirable goals (catching a mass murderer, ending a killing game/ending despair) but their methods are extreme and they also have an element of selfishness to them- they want to test their protagonist/rival, and have no plans of making it easy for them.

There's also the fact that both want to become what they admire- with Nagito secretly desiring nothing more than to become Hope, and Mello wanting nothing more than to become/surpass L. In the end, both are willing to die to achieve this, and sacrifice themselves.

That brings me to my next point- stepping stones. Nagito often claims he's a "stepping stone" for hope, and his ultimate motive throughout is always to see hope prevail, no matter what- even if that means engineering situations of despair, so that an even greater hope will arise from the ashes. He even sacrificed his life in an attempt to bring the Remnants down. Deep down, he actually wants to BE hope (hence his request at the end- 'Call me... the Ultimate Hope'). In a similar sense, Mello also ends up being somewhat of a stepping stone for Near- it's his sacrifice that not only saves Near from death at the hands of Mikami, but points Near to the last bit of evidence he needs to close the case. It's through Mello's aid and co-operation that boosts Near into the position he needs to be to surpass their mentor. In death, Mello becomes L, or the other half of L, alongside Near, finally letting go of his complex.

On that note- insecurity and an inferiority/superiority complex. Both characters are heavily insecure. Both feel inferior, Nagito to all Ultimates, and Mello to Near. At the same time, both have superiority complexes too. Nagito believes himself above those without talent (even if by, like 1%)- and believes all those without talent to be useless. He even looks down upon other Ultimates, when they let him down- and especially when he discovers the truth about the Remnants. Similarly, Mello also looks down upon others, especially Near. He's both jealous of, and judgemental of him.

I guess lack of co-operation is another thing- both can be lone wolves.

Appearance wise, there's not a lot LOL. I guess theyre both similar in height (5'9 and 5'7). Both wear long coats. OH- i guess they both have a physical 'deformity'- Mello with a large scar, and Nagito with his missing arm, which makes them both look SO badass.

Now, theres obviously differences- hence the hinata comment. I feel like Mello is someone who's a lot more understanding of emotions, like Hajime- or at least, more in touch with his emotions, and driven by them. Hes a heart over head kind of guy- hes still intellgent, but he reacts strongly to things, and he's not the endless well of patience that makoto was LOL. In contrast, Mello isn't as calm and cold as Nagito- Nagito thinks things ahead more, and is VERY cunning and calculative. He can keep his cool, and is a near-perfect actor. Mello is like Hajime in that regard, he's easy to read- whereas Nagito isn't, and keeps a lot of his feelings and intent behind that easygoing demeanour.

Near is like that too- his emotions aren't always clear unless you're paying close attention, and it's easy to miss the nuances of his character. When it comes to being driven by emotion, Makoto is definitely leagues ahead. In that aspect, Near shares a likeness to Kyoko- white hair, detective, 'cold' personality. I think he's more trusting than Kyoko though- certainly when it comes to his team, and Mello. I mean, Mello had a gun pointed at his head, and did he even turn around? No. He just trusted him that much, despite Mello killing his teammates earlier. Near is more co-operative, and a bit more honest too. To my memory, he's only lied to Light, when he said he didn't know what Mello looked like (i may be misremembering but I'm sure he said that at some point). Kyoko is more like L, I feel. More secretive and takes longer to warm up to those around her (at least in the first game). Near is VERY childish and playful, and people forget that.

Hes also sassy, as is Makoto. Wish more people realised that. Lol.

Anyway this has gotten insanely long, but yeah, that's my thoughts on it!

Naegi and Komaeda but its Near and Mello

[sleeptowns]

a year (or so) of fics, in retrospect

once every handful of years i remember to look back at the collection of projects i’ve finished recently and to simulate a critique as if i’m an art school student — and also as if i’m the haunted teacher’s assistant who wants to be gentle on the prof’s behalf but actually hates your work and also i am the other students who have been sitting there for seven hours straight and can’t offer much more except say, “it’s fine.” a one-man critique day, all parts played by me. 

sometimes i do this and the last period of writing has been drier than a pizza slice left in the winter sun, but this time i’m lucky that these last couple of years have been the closest i’ve had to a writing pax romana.

with that said, i’m not entirely sure how valid i am whenever i think these days that my writing has gone through some drastic changes in the last year; i’m not even sure if it’s accurate to call any of it growth, though i’m aware it’s the sort of thing i won’t have a clear perspective on until a few years after the fact. but i do know that i’m lucky to have so many works to act as markers for different periods of my writing, and while it’s far from a sure method of evaluation, there are parts there that i’m able to at least assess, if not outright measure. in the last year or so, my fics have started mutating towards — not really a separate sort of output than my previous ones, but definitely older somehow. older and quite different because of it: stylistic choices i would have steered clear of before, failed and/or lacklustre genre explorations, even relationship dynamics that were previously unfamiliar territory. my most recent fic feels like a culmination of all my attempts at wrestling with my writing in the ring, and now that it’s a few weeks behind me and i get to look at it with fresh(er) eyes and accept that it’s my favourite child (i’m sorry flls... you’re not too far behind), it’s also reminded me that i have a now overdue fic roundup to write. 

tangentially speaking, it’s interesting that you never really hear about self-taught writers. self-taught artists, yes, and self-taught musicians, but never quite self-taught writers. i don’t exactly purport to have taught myself everything i know about writing, and i know you can’t really be self-anything as a writer; what i lack in technique and finesse learned from proper writing classes, teachers, and/or workshops, i owe to the media i’ve consumed, good and bad, as well as to the creators i love and to all the thoughtful readers i’ve had over the years. if i’m self-taught in any way, then the self as a teacher was reared by countless others who have honed in me a limitless capacity to be an observer to stories, mine and all else. 

this post is just a roundup of all my fics from december 2020 to january 2023, including only the ones with enough substantial content to write about, which disqualifies a lot of the fics i left at one or five scenes max but qualifies the ones i abandoned at one chapter. just a little something for me to reference as i figure out where to take my writing next and hopefully move towards some kind of ✨ growth ✨ lol 

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FIRST LOVE, LATE SPRING december 2020 to march 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | dual pov romance, multimedia (?)

i covered a bit of the early chapters and conceptualization for flls in a separate post, but as i was reflecting on how to write a continuation, it occurred to me that if there’s a clear before and after to the current state of my writing, then the first portion of flls chapter five is where i’ll find it. 

when i was drafting my 58393th version of that chapter — nothing was working, none of it was the right vibe i needed, most of them too detached or too on-the-nose but never the perfect middle — i happened upon trying second person pov by accident. i’m not the biggest fan of second person (though to be fair, i don’t think anyone is) but by that point i was so sick of writing and rewriting this one section and not getting anywhere that i wondered if i should just lean all the way into that disgust. why not do something i hated entirely? and act of desperation as that was, the moment i started writing in curt, nauseating second person, i knew it was the right choice. 

the thing about writing flls!yuuji is that he felt both alive and unfamiliar. flls!megumi was easier to understand, even if he was trickier to write — but yuuji, i had to really work to get to know. one thing about him that i knew to be careful about from the very beginning of jjk is that it would be too surface level to think this boy is an extrovert. yuuji is usually painted as an energetic, sunny person, and i don’t think he’s not that, but there’s something about yuuji that’s also very internal and almost innately… isolated? i don’t know if that’s necessarily the right word, but there’s a lot about him as a character that’s out of view or grasp, which ironically i find people taking at face value. in flls, he required a lot more balance than megumi, who was a dam waiting to be relieved of its duties. flls!yuuji knows who or what he is — how could he not, when he’s never had a choice but to be this person, this kid who lost his grandpa, this kid who needs love but doesn’t know how to ask for it because he doesn’t even know there are forms of it he can ask for? 

how to write a character like that? how to nudge someone who doesn’t reveal even at his most revealing towards the christmas eve fight i had set up in the beginning of flls chapter one? back before chapter six of flls came out, i saw a lot of people argue that megumi and yuuji just needed to communicate, and yes, of course they do, but i was also very adamant as i started chapter five that the real tragedy about them is that communication will do nothing in the end. even if they magically became master communicators about their needs and wants and insecurities, none of it will change the fact that neither of them are ready to love and be loved by the other person. at least not in any way that constitutes a relationship that feels like love. 

i think that’s the key to writing the relationship in flls. it was never a question that they loved each other, and how much. never. this is probably the first piece of ~growth i appreciated about flls. it would be easy to write a romance where the main conflict is them not knowing the other loved them back, but flls got rid of that quite early. i left no room for doubt — or at least this is the hope — that flls!itfs loved each other in a way no one else would be able to compare to. they’re it for each other. but if it had been as simple as portraying that, then i never would have finished flls at all, and it definitely wouldn’t have been my longest fic at the time. 

instead — what if it was a given that they loved each other, and it still wasn’t enough? what kind of story can we spin about that? what kind of questions and answers can we find?

that’s actually such a pretentious way to frame that, but the fact of the matter is that i needed to not waste space now that we’re five chapters in. this is the beginning of the end. how do we shift gears and take the tone of the entire story along with it? i don’t know if there’s something about second person pov that’s just inherently full of dread, but it did quite a bit of work in chapter five. it felt disembodying for me as a writer, and i could only hope the same for readers. i was really, really worried some people will give up reading altogether thinking all of chapter five will be in second person, but i didn’t want to compromise. it was going to be second person for most of their real relationship or nothing: vaguely dissociative, intensely drained, with no room to actually enjoy being each other’s boyfriend. the main challenge was to not go from zero to a hundred in a snap. i had the room to do so in only one chapter, but i had to find a way to keep a tight rein on the pace or else the whole fic will fail. 

there also had to be love. and longing. and a desperation to make it work. i think that was yuuji in a nutshell — someone desperate to make it work, whatever this thing is. that’s what constitutes his strengths and his weaknesses, in canon and in flls. i wanted to find a way to make that palpable to a reader the way it was palpable to me while writing yuuji in second person. somewhere along making sure to tether myself to him by knowing what pieces of media he’d reference (high school musical and fullmetal alchemist) and his life outside of megumi (work, basketball, tea with nanami, skateboarding), i had to also drown with yuuji in the hope that the reader would follow. chapter three afforded me the luxury of only examining yuuji from the omniscience of a writer writing in third person — i could dismantle him through the therapy scene, could show myself and the reader a way to understand him, but i could not take us there to where he is. 

i don’t know how successful the second person pov was, ultimately, though i’d be lying if i said it wasn’t what i thought was truly best at the time. it probably wasn’t that creative to anyone but me, but it gave me a nudge towards different ways to explore… vibes. atmosphere, maybe, is the more formal word for it. if not for the second person pov choice in flls, i wouldn’t have been nudged towards kamo’s newsletter to act as the midway point of the story, the last palate cleanser i’ll allow myself and the reader, and i never would have written please let me love you forever and days of brutalism and hairpin turns the way i did. i owe a lot to that tiny but crucial choice, as does flls as a whole. everything that followed that section — the fight, the aftermath of the fight, the breakup — relied on it to make themselves work, and it’s funny (and valuable to note) how it’s something as seemingly inconsequential as a pov choice that set the tone. 

especially because there’s nothing special, really, about those following scenes. the christmas eve fight, megumi’s conversation in the car with geto, the break-up itself — all of it followed my standard flow of dialogue. sure, there’s more tension when you’re writing an argument, let alone when writing scenes that will inevitably lead to a break-up, but all scenes, particularly dialogue, have to feel fraught with some kind of energy and inevitable anyway. for the remainder of chapter five and six, i just coasted on the tone set up by the beginning of chapter five, and that’s knowledge that has served me quite well since. atmosphere goes a long, long way, and with my writing style, a healthy balance between dialogue and introspection will take me the rest of the way to the finish line. the part of flls that i’ve heard people find the most heartbreaking were also its simplest. all of chapter six is dedicated to one wedding, and chapter seven to one evening. i wish i could say there was a trick there, that i agonized over how to write such important scenes, but my personal takeaway is that there is no trick. the point is that you get the story to a point where those scenes write themselves; there’s nowhere else for the flow to go, and geto’s gentle unpacking of megumi, the last few scenes before megumi and yuuji break up, and the bittersweet reunion after two necessary years — i can only hope they carried a sense of “this is the only way it could have gone” the way they did for me. geto doesn’t tell megumi anything we don’t already know from earlier chapters, if only just now put into words. megumi and yuuji also don’t tell each other anything, in the breakup scene and the getting back together sections, that we haven’t already gleaned from them. from the moment kamo’s newsletter ended and we headed into act two — everything was just wrapping up what i left for myself.  

it’s worth noting that i did try to complicate the final chapter a bit. i tried a split pov between yuuji and megumi at first, as a way to finally reconcile their two perspectives, but that felt too cheesy. i tried an outing to nagoya for nobara’s birthday, tried to divide the pov amongst the people in their lives (junpei, nanami, nobara, etc), and even to do my usual cyclical structure of starting with the same image we did in chapter two, this time in yuuji’s funabashi apartment — but those all felt too on the nose. i trusted my flls readers. maybe that’s what all it came down to. i trusted them to know these people, and this story, and i didn’t want to do too much and compromise that trust. and in the end, i would argue, returning to simplicity made the story what it was. 

something i love to think about is how to explain my fics to others. i know it’s been said a lot that the ao3 tagging system has convinced a mini generation of writers that tags and names of tropes are all you need to pitch/be pitched a story, and i wholeheartedly agree. or i might just be terrible at advertising my work, with an obnoxious aversion to learning how to do it better to boot, but to be fair, i think my premises are all just as boring as they are ridiculous. flls is a college au with two friends with benefits turned fake boyfriends turned real boyfriends turned exes. that’s it. there’s nothing else in the plot but that. yet it’s a lot more to me than that, and sometimes that’s all you have when you send a story out into the world. the knowledge that it was briefly yours, and now it isn’t, but that doesn’t at all devalue what you’ve taken away from spending time with it. 

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US april 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | short form, childhood friends

this is one of a handful of attempts at writing a trope i don’t love all that much, inspired largely by the atmosphere in “horatio” by t.j klune. i was very conflicted about this fic when i first published it, primarily because it was so short and written in a sparse style i didn’t know how to evaluate, and partly because it didn’t feel substantial. in a post i’ve put on private since, i’d written: 

what if i repeat the same themes in another context? that doesn’t make the theme carry any less weight as long as i put heart and sincerity and compassion into how i’m writing about it. there’s something that is equally as much self-deprecation as it is borderline vanity in me placing these rules upon myself. i’ve always known i wrote first and foremost out of love, out of what makes me excited to write — and that still applies here. i was thrilled to be able to experiment with a short, snappy fic. and that’s far more important, isn’t it, than whether i’m writing a different dissertation angle on love or friendship or family or career? it doesn’t feel like it, no, but it should, because i know it is. i know that what matters to me is that writing is fun and compassionate, and i know that as long as one person finds comfort in a world i’ve built, it’s enough.

i don’t sound very convinced there, and i wasn’t. i still don’t know what to make about us. i like that it’s short, and i endeavour to write more short fics with nothing specific or significant about them — but it’s hard to stomach its existence, let alone see it as something to love. it just feels so… not empty, but definitely less than what i’m used to asking from myself. it’s short, it’s sweet, it’s snappy. it’s also formulaic in its own sparse way, and i think it works because of the sweetness, but the truth is that if i hadn’t written it for itafushi week, i would never have greenlit it for publishing. i still wrestle nowadays with wanting to delete it, but it matters so little to me that i can’t even justify that much. it’s a weird limbo of a story, though i still hope to explore this kind of writing more in the future. 

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SOME KIND OF WE june 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | sequel to existing complete story

broke my own rules here by revisiting a story past its run, but to be very fair, it was less out of sentiment (though there was also that) so much as me startling at my first proper reread of the latter half of flls and realizing there are still unresolved arcs for megumi because the final chapter set two years later only had yuuji’s pov. not many of them, and none especially urgent, but i thought it would be a good opportunity to reorient the story to something quieter and more mature than what the central conflicts in flls left room for. i’m not convinced the back-and-forth between pieces of their recent few months being together and the present evening worked as seamlessly as i wanted it to, but it was still a nice opportunity to use a non-linear narrative to explore the growth and development of a relationship that i left at quite the bittersweet open-endedness. what was only delicately certain by the end of flls was made concretely certain through some kind of we, even if it did run a bit too sentimental and saccharine. but i think it can be forgiven, considering what yuuji and megumi went through in flls proper. 

the main challenge of this fic was figuring out which portions of their life post-flls were worth including, and the first draft had five potential sections:

tokyo, for megumi’s first visit back after moving to chiba, mostly dedicated to him realizing that home — after being rooted for so long to this city, this one apartment with his dad, the same neighborhood and transit lines, to the gojo-geto household — now finally belongs somewhere else, with someone else. 

funabashi, most of which was preserved in the version that was published. 

sendai, to visit grandpa itadori’s grave, which i decided to streamline into a single scene at the end of the final some kind of we draft to cut away the excess and break it down to the core of why i wanted them to make this visit — which is to hammer home for yuuji that he isn’t alone anymore, that he has someone taking care of him and loving him without fail and with care, and to give megumi the agency to solidify, for his own sake, that he’s someone who means the whole universe to yuuji. enough that what place is his will always and solely be his, and enough that megumi will be allowed to love and take care of another person in a way that’s both eternal and an ever-evolving work in progress. 

okinawa, for a trip that was only referenced as a backdrop in the final version but that i still like to think a lot about even now. a cc anon said once that the gojo-geto household must be so lonely with all the kids grown up, but as i talked about in another reply once (it’s too far back for me to have time to dig out at this point), i do love to imagine yuuji and megumi being uncles to the next generation, even if not outright parents themselves. sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of giving as someone who was denied so much as a kid until you see someone so young, a stranger to the world, and know what to give them precisely because you didn’t have it once. and between yuuji not having much family and megumi’s life being complicated by the fact that he has too much family, i think they’re well-equipped to be uncles to tsumiki’s kids and beyond. and i was tempted for a bit to show this in the annual okinawa trips i mentioned in the final version of skow, but there just isn’t enough space without becoming superfluous. 

kuantan, to visit nanami, mostly to reconsolidate the rather serious interaction megumi and nanami had in flls into something gentler, considering he’s still family to yuuji and while nanami might say yuuji doesn’t need his blessing, yuuji will want it anyway. i never did end up writing this part, so it’s not exactly canon to the au and i’m hesitant to make it so, but the idea was to end with megumi asking for both nanami’s blessing and help to propose to yuuji on that malaysia trip.

the end result for this fic was a little lesson for me in cutting and cutting and keeping my hand light on the source, until i’m left with what i consider necessary. the final version of some kind of we is more a collection of vignettes than a straightforward account of megumi and yuuji’s life together post-flls, which i found much more strangely fitting. i feel like i spent so much of flls trying to get them to a point where they’re ready to be with each other, and i just wanted to dedicate skow to them not just making it work but building love on top of the foundations they secure. it’s one thing to portray that through a whole fic dedicated to each milestone; it’s another to write ordinary moments that are made extraordinary because they have chosen that for and with each other. neither of them say i love you out loud in the entire fic, but i wanted there to be no doubt that they do say it. that they do love each other, and that this part isn’t the obstacle it used to be. they’re just some kind of them, together, and this time it doesn’t feel bittersweet for me to send them off to the world for good knowing there’s love falling out of the spaces between each vignette i wrote. 

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HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND october 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | fantasy au

yikes. one of two fics in this round-up that i abandoned at chapter one. started this because an idea occurred to me while reading the atlas six, wrote until i had to stop, then didn’t look back once even when it would have served me to. 

i flew too eagerly close to the sun with this one, truly, but as far as intentions go, i think both my mind and heart were in the right place. it’s quite clear where this one went wrong: i had neither time nor the energy to dedicate to it; i started it on the same whim i start most other things but this time didn’t have the passion for it — and i confess i just didn’t have the patience required to work on writing the story i wanted to write.

it was also one of those lessons in how often big ideas — or an attempt at them — cannot sustain a story. i had what i thought were clear ideas and intentions about the themes i wanted to cover in this one (the downfall of religious devotion, reconstruction, academic institutions versus personal/individual responsibility, all of which just look like buzzwords now that i’m typing them out, omg), but it just didn’t leave room for the kind of story i like to write. i guess my main takeaway here is that the pitfall of high(er) concept genre stories is that you have to make space for the world at the cost of room for character writing; it’s just the nature of how much space in the narrative you can allot for each individual aspect of the story, and with stuff like fantasy and sci-fi, the worldbuilding takes up a significant amount more than your run-of-the-mill slice of life story where the only world i have to worry about sketching is where someone lives and works. 

i do like some parts? it’s kind of crude, how i tried to reconcile my writing style with genre-specific bits, but it’s not all terrible. this sequence is alright:

Megumi was seven the first time he restored something. 

Every part of it had been an accident, and he remembers it now only in fragments. The wet rag in his hand as he wiped down the dining hall tables, having to climb the chairs to get to each corner. The horrible echo of something shattering in the kitchen, where Tsumiki had been tasked to do all the dishwashing for the evening. The panic on her face when Megumi got to her, both of them crowding around the shards of ceramic left by what was once a plate. The spill of harsh candlelight from above the sink, the harsher shadows it sent dancing around the broken glass. 

But he does remember the remembering. The knowing of what the plate had looked like once, the image behind his eyes anchoring him in place as he latched onto the curl of the shadows on the floor. It would be more intuitive, more rudimentary, than anything he’d learn to do later in life, propelled by the worry on Tsumiki’s face and the footsteps he swore he could hear coming towards them from the other end of the servants’ quarters they called home back then—but it had taken only a single blink for the shadows to cover the plate, tighten around it into darkness, and then retreat to where they were, leaving a clean, untouched plate in the middle of the kitchen floor. 

it could be better, but it still could be worse. and i do like the overall architectural imagery and how i managed to scrounge up some standard fare coziness somewhere in the cold, almost-medieval setting. 

as far as disastrously failed ventures go, this one could be a lot more embarrassing than it is. i’m not mad at it. it’s far from good enough, and if i didn’t write it in such a frenzy, i probably never would have allowed it to be published. but. it’s a useful failure. 

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PLEASE LET ME LOVE YOU FOREVER march to june 2022, blue period trial element | five-character gen dynamic, multimedia

what a... headache of a project. bit off more than i could chew without choking and decided to take even more bites each new chapter because why the hell not, apparently. i do appreciate how un-edited this fic is, despite it all. it feels the most bleeding-heart of all my fics from this past year or so, and it’s nice to look back at this and know exactly when i shifted my approach to it altogether because, again, why not. it’s such a valuable “why not?” to have. it’s nice when i don’t feel quite as… under surveillance? when writing a story. and i get to just go off the rails a bit. a lot, actually, with this one. it’s nothing crazy because i don’t think i can write anything crazy (though i think hairpin turns had blinks of it), but there’s definitely plenty of choices that i’m surprised i decided on with a sober mind. 

to be fair, they weren’t exactly mindblowingly successful. if i were to rate this fic out of five, despite all my fondness for it, i’d maybe give it a 2.75. it’s a well-earned mark, and i have a special soft spot for people who have read it, but i’m not mentally proud of it. emotionally so, maybe, in whatever way i can be, but if this fic didn’t feel so intimate with a much cozier readership and comment section, i’d be a lot crueler to it than i am, i think. as it is, it makes for wonderful conversation and reflection for me, and it’s always fun to consider how a story about a disbanded idol group became a metaphor for childhoods lost to growing up too fast and also involved alternate universes. 

but cycling through five povs really is too much, i think, and if it was exhausting for me to write then i imagine it was just as exhausting to read. a nicer alternative would have been to stick to one pov for each chapter, but even that was a lot to juggle considering there were also smaller dynamics going on in the background with each character. within the core group of five alone, there were thirty-one variations of scenes to write, including individual introspection and pairs — and that’s not to take into consideration trios, or groups of four or the whole five plus a secondary character, for example. i don’t know how i pulled off my usual character study here. i don’t know if i did. 

another thing about this fic is that i’m still not sure why a time loop didn’t work. i wanted it so badly to work. i thought it would be fun, but i guess time loops aren’t necessarily compatible with prose. there’s something about repetition and looping that’s best visually, but even if i had been able to stick to imagery and vibes, it would have gotten tedious at some point for me and a reader considering the quantity/length i tend to need. just something to keep in mind if i get the urge to keep trying time loops in future works and wonder why it’s not sticking seamlessly. as with a lot of things in life, if you have to force it then maybe it’s not meant to be there. or maybe you have to go shortform, narrow down the playing field?

one thing i’d commend this fic for is how it managed to unpack so much between dynamics that barely exist in canon. that, and how it managed to pack so many formats into one story — song lyrics, album reviews, tweets, a play, nonfiction, a profile, wikipedia pages, messages, i don’t even know how many more — while maintaining a semi-cohesive tone throughout. there was a lot of fun there, in figuring out how to adapt your typical characterizing to a format you haven’t tried before: how would kuwana write a preface to hashida’s book? would this particular character include rhymes in their song lyrics, or are they more of a diaristic stream of consciousness kind of lyricist? what medium best translates this character’s personality? what medium best conveys this dynamic’s under-the-skin knowing of each other? who sees more than the others, and how can i show that without using the same structure of two or three characters talking in a setting that doesn’t change? 

my favourite part is probably the fake album review at the top of chapter four? there’s something giddying about the research-like quality of figuring out how to perfect the tone that music reviewers tend to default to, but also sobering about how easily adapted this fake idol group’s history is from real life. the easiest part of the entire fic was making this group feel real to me, situated in the real life history of j-idols and beyond, even if i admit to shying away from being explicit about the worst things that would still have been grounded in reality. some references to real life idol incidents worked a little too well, but there was also how clean it felt to spin fictional lore for this group in that fake album review. from their individual songwriting styles to tobi’s own background in-story to the kind of themes and concepts a faux pretentious pitchfork reviewer might like to talk about — it was just incredibly fun. i don’t know when else i’d get the chance to write something like that. everything else paled in comparison to it soon after, though i do also tolerate whatever my writing was doing at the end of chapter five, even if some parts of that chapter also feel lacklustre through a hypercritical lens. it doesn’t hold up under extremely rigorous scrutiny, even if i consider the fact that i’d just wanted the fic wrapped up as soon as i could at the time. it could be better, more so than all the other fics in this post could be better. but i don’t mind too much that it isn’t better. i mind it a little. just a little. but its flawedness is also what forced the multimedia format to happen in the first place, and that, i like a lot.

there’s a fair amount that this fic did quite more than alright, i think. if nothing else, it was useful as a playground that i didn’t have to be too finicky about. it will be one of those projects i’ll look back at someday and laugh deliriously over because how did i think that was the only way to make it work, but with the facilities i had at the time, it’s definitely not a shitshow. it has a lot of heart — which doesn’t necessarily redeem awful works, but in passable ones, those parts of the writing meet each other halfway. please let me love you forever holds its own weight, which is plenty more than i can say for most of my other experiments. plus it contains a background relationship that is not at all the focus of the story yet will probably haunt me forever. it’s always the ones you least expect to matter that will ripple further down the line, etc.

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LOSER TAKES ALL july 2022, tomodachi game trial element | soulmates, mystery au

another unpublished little guy left to rot at one complete chapter. i don’t really have any huge problems with this one, just that i tired of its demands very quickly and didn’t have enough attachment to the dynamics in it to muster up any motivation for. but tomodachi game, and especially yuuichi and kei, are so uniquely positioned for a fic like this, and i don’t resent past me for approaching it this way at all. is a soulmate bond that fosters a telepathic link between people who come back from a brush with death kind of an unhinged premise for a mystery au? yes. but so is remodeling a breakfast restaurant with my mom and the guy i didn’t know confessed to me in high school and who is now literally displaced in more ways than one by said remodeling, and even also acting is all i know so here i am trying to find the love of my life by dating anyone for an entire month on a first come first serve basis only to be shocked when that doesn’t work. 

again. boring yet equally ridiculous elevator pitches. if i cemented anything for a fact from this abandoned wip, it’s that my premises have always been questionable, and that time and time again, the only path forward is to lean all the way into it — which i did with hairpin turns, thankfully. hand in unlovable hand and loser takes all are apart by about a year, and there’s palpable change here in my approach to worldbuilding even if i abandoned each for unrelated reasons. granted, i might just be better suited to one side of speculative fiction than the other, but that’s such a copout. when it comes to trying new things in writing, the “if he wanted to, he would” logic applies, even if the he in question ultimately finds that it doesn’t work the way he wants it to (like in hand in unlovable hand). 

loser takes all worked fine for me, and i loved the inherent intimacy in having two incredibly smart and perceptive characters in each other’s minds while trapped in this soulmate bond that isn’t necessarily romantic. not to mention yuuichi is a deeply unwell person, and his ways of showing attachment to kei range from drastically protective, such as offering to fire the receptionist that was rude to kei, to:

Sometimes, watching Kei asleep right against him, Yuuichi wants to press his lips against Kei’s pulse. To feel it warm and alive under his mouth, to hear that little sigh of ticklish laughter Kei does if someone so much as runs a soft cloth against his neck. 

And sometimes—sometimes Yuuichi is also seized by a strong thought, a strong urge, to sink something sharp into that pulse. His teeth, a fork, a shard of broken glass. Sink it in hard, deep enough to leave a bloody bruise, a scar, a puncture. Hard enough to maybe even sever that heartbeat, to tear it, slit it into silence somehow. Hard enough that it feels almost the kinder choice to imagine himself wrapping his hands around Kei’s neck—tightening them without hesitation, itself a mercy of a kind as the blood quickly drains out of Kei’s cheeks. Yuuichi imagines then how Kei will struggle, whether he’ll kick or bite Yuuichi, if he’ll reverse their positions with one twist of a martial arts trained body, or if he’ll just accept it, resign himself to it knowing that not even this, if it’s Yuuichi, could possibly be meaningless.

But it would be. It would be meaningless to kill Kei. Meaningless because Kei is singular in his position within Yuuichi’s life, loyal and intelligent and a force to be reckoned with like no one else is, not even Yuuichi’s sister, not even the only friend he trusts most. Meaningless because every time Yuuichi pictures it, every time he wonders if he’ll have it in him to press two killer’s hands around Kei’s neck, it doesn’t take long for the accompanying sting to come like a splash of boiling water on exposed skin. A kind of scolding, a kind of reminder, that just as much as it would be difficult for anyone to kill Kei—so impervious to physical harm, whose broken bones and bleeding wounds will always heal even if he jumps off a twenty-story building—it would be just as difficult for Yuuichi to do him harm and survive it without any damage done to his own heart at his own hands. 

the temptation to keep writing this is not entirely absent, to be honest. but a mystery takes care and attention, and i just don’t have that in me the way this story deserves. but this fic was delicious to write, and i think it gave me a hunger to write more dynamics that feel just as juicy. dynamics that aren’t necessarily geared towards healthy love, but ones that ooze if poked anyway. 

i definitely want to revisit the telepathy plot device i explored here someday, but for now, this fic, abandoned wip as it is, is kind of the goldilocks midpoint between failed venture (hand in unlovable hand), almost-passable venture (please let me love you forever), and basically there if being there counts taking your literal first baby step into a new frontier (days of brutalism and hairpin turns).

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HONORARY MENTIONS

i don’t mean to ignore the canonverse fics (here and where you are, i’ll give you something so real, detour, and the two manhwa fics, that is) out of favouritism, but i’m afraid there’s nothing much to say…? not that these weren’t lessons in themselves, but canonverse takes a quarter of the energy and brainpower to write, and i’ll be lying if i don’t go about them essentially all no thoughts, head empty. i talked a bit about here and where you are here, while the logic for detour, which i was happy to write for and based on exchanges with a friend, is pretty self-explanatory. i did love getting to write a character like loid (and i’m relieved that the chapters that follow the ones i took into consideration for that fic hold up the characterization i imagined for him) + it was interesting to give sexual content and the philosophy of desire or whatever a shot in i’ll give you something so real. they were effective at what i needed them to do — which is, really, just to check the temperature of the water. i always feel so rusty when any amount of time passes without me writing, and these small, low-maintenance fics work as a burst of ice cold water before jumping in. i don’t value these fics any less for their place in The Process, and i might even be extra happy when someone likes them, but as far as Advancing The Craft 🤢 goes, all of these are simply necessary bridges to get to the next checkpoint. sometimes you gotta scratch the tip of the pen before the ink starts bleeding like it’s supposed to. words are the same. it takes a while each time to get my writing to a place i recognize, and sometimes a while is an entire fic before i can write the next chapter for an ongoing multi-chaptered story.

(that said: shoutout to the particular flavour of introspection in detour, within which my favourite line was written the literal minute before i sent it off, and a big heart emoji for the fact that i’ll give you something so real unfolds in a span of barely half a day. both are very interesting to think about moving forward.)

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DAYS OF BRUTALISM AND HAIRPIN TURNS january 2023, blue lock trial element | a romantic triad, sci-fi, memory loss (finally!) 

my angel. my darling. my love. who is far from being perfect but is the closest i’ve had to at least being sure i won’t just wake up one day loathing the soul out of it. i’ll laugh at it, probably. i’ll think it’s hilarious and cringy someday soon. but it’s a work i can’t not appreciate wholeheartedly. 

my cc tells me that the first time i put it on record that i won’t mind doing a blue lock fic is may 16, 2022, and the fact that i didn’t even make it a year and did so in the most Hard To Pitch If This Was An Actual Novel And Not Just A Fic For Fun way possible is worth at least a salute of disbelief, i think. my journal from my writing hiatus also tells me i’ve been trying to make memory loss work since 2020 and managed to scratch the itch minutely with here and where you are (which is… a pretty janky piece of work, looking back now) — but i’m just really, really content, even proud, of how i managed to weave it into a fic adapted from a story about football battle royale. 

it’s almost kind of unnerving how satisfied i am with the premise of hairpin turns, even if the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired — as it always will, really, and therein is the joy of finding the next writing project. i laughed a lot at myself while writing hairpin turns, and of all the inside jokes that my works started as, this one is by far the fic to feel most like it — a fun little joke that got funnier and funnier the more of it i wrote, and so i wrote more, chasing that laughter until it was time to catch my breath. and i think with how much i require writing to feel urgent and single-minded to be fun, there’s a part of me that’s easily... bored, for lack of a better word, when something doesn’t give me that. without this fast-paced almost-violence, i get bored and restless, the way i was around all the projects i had lined up after please let me love you forever. i’m making a face as i type that but maybe i just mean to say that there were a good few months there where nothing scratched the itch in need of stimulation. i’d write scenes and they wouldn’t be awful, wouldn’t even be bad, but they weren’t exciting to me. they weren’t thrilling. they didn’t feel like i was dissecting anything, just poking at skin with a scalpel and rolling my eyes when i didn’t draw blood from a dead body — you know? 

but projects have an uncanny way of arriving in your life when you most need it, and just when i have peeled and replaced my wallpaper and assembled and reassembled my keyboards and poked at this manuscript i refuse to rewrite until i did a warm-up that felt substantial enough, the blue lock anime started airing. i knew vaguely what dynamics i wanted to write even back when i had only the manga, but i know i could not have tortured this fic out of me then. not before please let me love you forever, not before loser takes all, not even before all my failed attempts at pitching speculative fiction stories to myself at 3 AM and gritting my teeth at my own disgust. the best aus fall into your lap fully formed and fully realized before you even know what you’ll be shaping it into; they’re a little predestined that way, and aus might be why i owe fanfiction my certainty that the author is just as possessed by the narrative if the narrative has its own pace and direction. i think that’s logic that should be applicable to original projects as well. 

i did hesitate in the very beginning of hairpin turns because sci-fi was such a huge deviation from my comfort zone and i have the misfortune of being both a taurus sun and an enneagram type five. i’ve never tried writing proper sci-fi, not even a little, let alone enough to be comfortable with knowing where to start something that wasn’t merely regular slice of life with a slight sprinkling of specfic. i was sure my writing style wouldn’t be a good match for it. i still don’t think it’s a match, necessarily. my prose is a bit too sentimental for some of the demands sci-fi asked of me — and that’s fine. i wouldn’t know the precise nature of that incompatibility if i hadn’t jumped into the pool of sharks and came out of the tank somehow, disbelievingly, friends with them. i began wary of relying too much on technobabble since i’m not exactly the most stem-oriented person around, but even the background of this au wrote itself, half because blue lock was a shockingly perfect match for the world i had in my mind and half because i found that the technology i imagined for the plot was both possible and easy to break down into the narrative. even now i’m still shocked at how scientifically sound the core pitch of the story is, and the fact that it married itself well to both the overarching plot and the character dynamics i wanted to highlight was just icing on a cake i would have tried to politely finish anyway. 

it could very well be that hairpin turns is just a fluke, its parts too seamlessly glued to each other that i’m not sure it could have been anything else except luck doing the work there, but i think there’s also credit to be found in how nothing is sacred in blue lock. these are characters who have done ridiculous things and said ridiculous things, and it was a matter of matching their energy. therein is the same lesson from loser takes all: if i’ve always known that characters decide the pace, tone and atmosphere of the story and everything else in it, then doesn’t it also go to say that in order to write a story far out of my comfort zone, i need only start with characters far outside of my comfort zone?

i think with au fics in particular, a lot of the work begins with justifying why certain things are in character for them in this universe based on what we know from canon. but because those boundaries are expanded by what blue lock innately is, it doesn’t feel as weird to posit something like, what if you and your android bf get tasked with rescuing his older brother’s android bf and find out along the way that you might also both be in love with your childhood best friend? as with most other of my initial ideas, this quickly spiraled into something significantly different — which luckily for me included the memory loss idea that i’ve been wanting to explore for forever now. proper sci-fi was the perfect backdrop for it, and bachira the perfect person to willingly do it, and isagi and rin the perfect people to be left in the aftermath of that loss. stars aligned, truly. i’m incredibly grateful for it. 

whatever challenges i encountered writing this fic had nothing to do with writing it. it was as smooth to write as it was an absolute pain to edit, because the three povs are so vastly different from each other, and with no outline to mentally check each time i add a new scene, i was reliant on going back and forth again and again to make sure the worldbuilding is cohesive and the plot is coherent. at some point i couldn’t look at it anymore, and it might even be a testament to how much i appreciate the fic that i still can’t look at it now yet cannot deny how fond i am of the final result. 

with sci-fi in particular, it really is a case of faking it till you make it, and whatever lies don’t feed into each other, you can always revisit and adjust later. that’s the common sense magic of fiction, i suppose. there’s a degree of patience i held onto writing hairpin turns that i wouldn’t have had with any other previous work, and i think it benefited me more to have all three chapters written in varying increments, out of my usual linear order, than publishing it chapter by chapter. i had all the room to experiment — what does the world look like in 2070? is 2070 even the right year to set this in? is there anything big happening around that time period? how does the lingo change in the time between present and this potential future? when i run into things that feel too out of my depth to write, like isagi’s pov for instance, do i actually have a justification for saying no other than how it will be easier than trying? are there benefits to giving bachira the final chapter that i’m being biased against because i think it would be a challenge? and between all of these choices, how do i adapt existing blue lock canon, from their playstyles to the favourites listed in the egoist bible, to worldbuilding in other forms of media that i’ve always wanted to try a different approach to? 

i used to think it was unnecessary and superfluous to go into writing something while getting bogged down by stray facts about characters, in both fic and original projects, but at the same time, it’s truly the tiny details that will humanize more than knowing a character’s birthday or what traumatic events lie in their backstory. tiny details that breed more tiny details, until it’s about the fact that bachira and isagi are childhood friends in this au yet when we meet bachira again he’s calling isagi by last name, or how rin understandably questions the validity of his own humanness because we can only assume sae had recreated him in grief or defiance against mortality or whatever other emotion that we’ll never know for sure because we only ever see sae in this fic through rin, and that matters a lot more than if i gave sae a pov — and yet rin manages to love through the small things, in how the warehouse is in an eternal sunset waiting for bachira to return to him and isagi. it’s about how first love, late spring was about learning how to love someone else the way they need you to when you weren’t loved the way you needed to be, but hairpin turns is about how spending your whole life never questioning if you were loved can rob you of the facilities to put a name and shape to what you feel for someone who’s always been in your life. the things you don’t take for granted, necessarily, but you do love for granted by not calling it love.

hairpin turns is about the pieces obscured from view and all the more present because of it. it’s about lost memories, the phantom outline of a person like a haunting. it’s about how sae never once appears in a direct scene yet he looms over rin’s existence. it’s about how rin’s chapter represents the past, isagi’s the present and bachira’s the future, but time matters little in the end — how could it weigh any more, in a story about memory? it’s about the uneasy momentary peace that’s the only scene we can count on as a happy ending. it’s about the lengths you’ll go to get the chance to be ordinary about your love, even if all else about it is unconventional. 

and yet above all, what i like best about this fic is that it works towards questions that feel like being given answers. some of my other fics try to provide answers to its characters and the readers they resonate with, to give them a way to be well-equipped to move forward, while a few other fics settle on non-answers because uncertainty is the only ending there is. but hairpin turns moves outward only to ask more questions, questions that are the answers and the thesis, yet in a way that isn’t strictly open-ended. and i have no fucking clue how i managed it, but this feels like the target i’ve been itching to catch sight of this entire time. this is the kind of story and process i would like to aspire to this year, and even though it had taken me 80k to glean what i needed from it, i’m glad i stayed with this fic as a warm-up. 

anyway. this got a bit away from me, and who knows, maybe this level of pretentiousness is only because i’m still riding the high of affection for my most recent brainchild to make it to college — but i’m not totally blind to the flaws in hairpin turns. the execution of the ending itself is clunky, not because it doesn’t resolve anything but because it does, and by then, the post-rescue section has gone on for long enough that even an ending feels like an epilogue. the story overall lacks complete confidence in what it is, with some parts shadowed by a slight hovering hesitation and others weighed down by a heavy hand showing too much kindness to my non-confidence. it’s never too heavy-handed, and definitely not so much that i’ll send it to the bin, but enough that if i want something to pick apart, there are stray choices hiding in places that i’d circle as an editor for feeling too sentimental, or the tone too dissonant with the pacing, or, ironically, not explored enough. in the genre i’m used to writing, the adrenaline rush is in finding the right balance within a new choreography for a dance style i know well, but in my first real foray into speculative fiction, i think i was just trying to find my footing the whole time. i’m still surprised i made it to the other end of the tightrope, honestly. i didn’t expect to applaud myself for the bare minimum, and i still don’t. 

but all of this is a lesson for me, too. what i do know is that it’s interesting to tell a story about what’s missing, about the unsaid and the unseen, and if that’s what it will take for me to rediscover excitement in what i write so that i don’t have to sink back into the ennui of these last couple of months, then that’s a pretty darn fun goal to spend the rest of the year unpacking. 

[miekasa]

Mie, I’m begging for some Jean college au bf hcs - im literally so down bad for this man and the way you write men is just 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

Absolutely, not a problem 😌 I saved this ask as a draft a while ago when you sent it, sorry for just now getting to it. Anyway, I love Jean with my whole heart, best boy, best boyfriend <33

King of forehead kisses, and not even just because of his height in comparison to yours; he just likes it. He likes the feeling of pressing his lips against your skin, and making you feel safe.

Brings you tea or coffee however you like it every day without fail. If he can get it to you in the morning before work/school then he’ll do that, if not he’ll meet you some time in the middle of the day to drop it off. Your own personal courier just for drinks.

He… has a thing for long(er) nails. He loves the feeling of them against his skin, even if you’re not scratching to apply pressure—just you holding his hand them grazing his skin is enough for him.

That being said, he will pay for you to get your nails done. Actually, he’ll pay for… almost anything you want, but the nails benefit him as much as they do you so feel free to ball out.

He never blowdries his hair because he doesn’t... know how to do the back of it. You did it for him once and he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since, but he’s also too embarrassed to ask you to do/style it again.

On the subject of hair, he does do his best to style it and take care of it, but he’s a sucker whenever you play with it. Sometimes he feigns like you’re messing up all his hard work, but he’ll literally crane his head into your touch. He loves it. 

The first time he lays on top of you and you run your hands through his hair... top 10 most euphoric moments of his life. He tries to fight off the sleep threatening to take over him, but it’s futile. Give it 15 minutes at most before he’s knocked out like a baby. 

Dogs love him. Anytime you’re in a park or just taking a walk and there’s a dog around, it’ll come up to him and he looks adorable leaning down to pet it. He loves dogs, too! So he’s always happy to stop and pet them. He’d be a 10/10 dog dad. 

Has your name saved in his phone with two hearts at the end. Do not point it out.

Loves taking pictures together and if you guys are on a date, he’ll ask someone to get a picture for him. He just likes having them to look back on (and to send to his mom, later).

He doesn’t mind painting classes or videos or tutorials, but he hates paint by numbers kits. He claims that they have no sense of color theory and that it takes the originality and fun out of painting. Not to mention the quality of the paints isn’t great to begin with; all of which he takes very seriously.

It’s pretty cute actually, to see him get worked up over the paint kits. He claims that painting and drawing isn’t even something he takes “that seriously,” it’s just a hobby for him (one he’s insanely good at); but in moments like these, you can tell that he’s way more into art and art theory and history than he lets on. 

Huge movie guy, from animated movies to martial arts movies, Jean is usually willingly to give anything a watch at least once. When he’s high, he can go on about his favorite directors and art styles and movie details for hours if you don’t stop him. It’s super cute. Just don’t bring up Moana, because he’ll start crying. 

Arm around the shoulder kind of boyfriend for sure. It’s a casual way of keeping you near him and letting everyone know that you guys are together. Plus it allows for him to easily pull you into him for a quick forehead kiss when needed.

Listen. If you hug his arm, he’s on cloud nine. He tries to be nonchalant about it but he’s about three seconds away from his eyes rolling back in his head it feels that good to him. Bonus if you lean your head on his bicep a little—then he’s a goner.

He takes his bagels very seriously and believes that both you and him deserve nothing but the best quality bagels. He’ll grumble if a bakery gives you guys a less than favorable one and make a note that taking the long route to get to his favorite place is much more worth it.

Always makes you walk on the side furthest from the cars. If he notices you’re not, he’ll just shuffle behind you until he’s shouldering the street and you’re on the inside. 

He grew up on a kind of modern ranch situation; not exactly all the way in the countryside, but not isolate from the city, either. Because of this, he knows how to ride horses, take care of smaller farm animals, tend to plants, and yes he knows how to use a lasso. You wouldn’t know any of that though, because he never ever talks about it. The only way you find out is when he takes you to visit his mom’s house for the first time, and she asks him for a hand around the place. 

(He’s got a cowboy hat, too, but refuses to put it on. He got it when he was, like, nine, okay, leave him alone). 

When he thinks you look tired, he’ll wrap his arms around your shoulders to hug you. It’s usually followed up with a kiss to your head, and a promise that you guys will go home soon and get food on the way. 

He’s a really good cook. He just understands and flavors and pairings really well, so he doesn’t need a recipe to make something that tastes good; he just kind of knows what to add to get the balance he’s looking for. 

Naturally, he’ll cook for you. Especially if he finds out that you haven’t eaten all day/in a long time. He doesn’t care if it’s 11pm and it might seem excessive to make steak and potatoes with a side salad at this hour, he’s gonna do it to make sure you eat, and you are going to sit there and watch. 

He also bakes pretty well, though he isn’t as experimental with his baking as he is with his cooking. He usually sticks to what he knows, and it’s not cupcakes and brownies and cakes; he’s better at croissants, and cheesecakes, and canelés. 

Dating Jean means getting along with his friends. If you guys didn’t know each other before you started dating, be prepared to be ambushed by Connie and Sasha (after Jean stops hiding you away and gives them the green light lmfao). Neither of them waste time with the small talk and formalities; straight into mini golfing and beer pong. They make you feel welcome right away.

Sasha always teases that you’re too good for Jean, and that she might just steal you away for herself some day. Sasha is also Jean’s main confidant, so she really knows just how much he loves you, and yeah, she teases him for being lovesick, but really she’s happy for Jean. And proud of him for facing his feelings like this. 

Connie adores you, and you know he trusts you when he starts going to you for advice/help. Could be anything from schoolwork, to what color he should get his new shoes in. He’s also the one who, surprisingly, you have the sentimental talks with about your relationship with Jean. It’s easy to overlook, but Connie loves Jean, and he’s come to love you too; he just wants you both to be happy, so he’s there to listen when you need it. 

Jean waits outside of your classroom after you’ve had a test or presentation, usually with a drink or a snack, or the promise of taking you out as a treat. Always tells you he’s proud of you, and is there to comfort you if you think you didn’t do too well. 

He does not shut up about whatever major you’re in. It could be the same as his; it could be the complete opposite as his. He thinks it’s so sick that you’re doing it, you make it look cooler, you make it look better, and he’s certain you’re the smartest person in your program. 

He’s pretty serious about his studies, too, so he’s always down to study with you in the library whenever you’re both free. More often than not, he shows up after you, usually with food or extra chargers. He greets you with a kiss on the forehead, and asks you how you are while massaging your shoulders gently. If it’s been a while since you took a break, that’s the first item on the list, after that, he gets to work and stays with you until you’re ready to go, even if he doesn’t have as much work to do. 

He always sits across from you. This goes for when you’re in the library, or out to eat at a restaurant; Jean loves sitting across from you. He gets to see your face the best that way, and he adores looking into your eyes when you talk. 

He’s not... not a morning person. He’s not up at 6am ready to grind, but he wakes up before noon; let’s say 10am is his happy medium. That being said, if you wake up before him, regardless of the time, there’s a 9/10 chance he’ll lay on your back and tell you to hush so you guys can sleep for 10 more minutes. 

If you’re (close) friends with Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, Jean is... happy you’ve got people to rely on, but, “Of all people on the planet, you put your trust in Jaeger?” He acts so bitter (because he is), but deep down inside, he’s glad you have Eren to rely on if you need to. 

(Also, you have to humble him and remind him that he and Eren aren’t all that different. If you like him, why wouldn’t you get along with Eren, bye). 

Turns out though, that it’s not Eren who threatens to beat him up if he breaks your heart. It’s not even Mikasa, although, her threat goes without saying; it’s Armin he’s terrified of.

The last time Armin hated someone, it was this guy in your program, who happened to share a few mutual classes with him, too. Jean never knew the full story, just that he’s pretty sure that kid dropped out the following semester. 

If you have a job on campus, Jean usually doesn’t show up while you’re working (knowing how embarrassed he would be if you did that to him), unless you work the night shift and it’s dead. Connie, however, does show up; usually in some kind of crisis (“Please help me, I don’t know what the fuck APA formatting is and this is due tonight, please, please, please!!”). Your coworkers actually thought Connie was your boyfriend for a minute. That’s when Jean starts showing up more lmfao.

He makes it a point to go on a scheduled, night out, kind of date at least twice a month. He knows life gets busy with school and work and midterms, but he always makes sure you both set side a time to take a well-deserved break and be with each other. 

He’s the romantic type, so these dates are pretty swoon worthy, too. Drive-in movies, nice dinners, classy art exhibits, Jean plans it all. On that note, he really likes planning dates; he just doesn’t like talking about them with his friends beforehand. 

All in all, very romantic, very precious boyfriend. He’s always thinking about you, what you need, and how he can help you out. You’re one of his main priorities, and he just wants to treat you right. 

[duckprintspress]

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!